Mister Lonely (2007) starring Diego Luna, Samantha Morton, Denis Lavant, James Fox, Werner Herzog, Richard Strange, Jason Pennycooke directed by Harmony Korine Movie Review

Mister Lonely (2007)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Samantha Morton and Diego Luna in Mister Lonely (2007)

Simply Wacko

Michael Jackson meets Marilyn Monroe in France and they go for a drink where Marilyn persuades Michael to return with her to a remote Scottish Island where she lives with her husband Charlie Chaplin and their daughter Shirley Temple. They share their home with Abraham Lincoln, Madonna, the Queen, James Dean, Sammy Davis Jr, The Pope, Buckwheat, Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Stooges.

Now reading that I haven't told you something, all these people are impersonators but that is the basis of "Mister Lonely" a very strange yet strangely entertaining movie from Harmony Korine and writer Avi Korine. In fact there is something else I haven't told you because whilst we have this commune in Scotland where impersonators live together we also have a story about a priest and some nuns who live in a remote rain forest where they deliver supplies to villages via air drops. But unfortunately during one of these air drops one of the nuns falls out and somehow miraculously survives a fall from 2,000 feet. Yes not only is that storyline strange but it doesn't fit in with are story of impersonators which adds to the strangeness of "Mister Lonely".

Samantha Morton and Denis Lavant in Mister Lonely (2007)

Now what does that mean? Well despite being strangely entertaining "Mister Lonely" doesn't work as a movie or not in the context of what I believe makes a movie. But as some inspired ideas it is brilliant and it is because of these ideas, the curious set up of impersonators living together and living everyday in character keeps you watching. It is the strangeness of watching The Pope interact with The Queen or Michael Jackson sharing a drink with Marilyn Monroe which keeps you watching rather than the highly hidden storyline which thanks to the strange disjointed nature is never really clear. I get a feeling that the story is about the loneliness of those who can't deal with life on everyone else's terms and so choose to live it by pretending to be someone else but if that is the case it gets lost in with everything else.

But it is still in the strangest of ways entertaining even though it doesn't work. Watching Diego Luna as Michael Jackson kick out a leg or grab his crotch in an iconic pose is as amusing as watching him and Marilyn Monroe flirt. But then you have the quirkily amusing scene where the Three Stooges have to kill the commune's sheep after they are found to have a disease, a dark yet amusing scene. I could go on because whilst most of these impersonations are anything but authentic they are entertaining in their individual peculiarity.

What this all boils down to is that "Mister Lonely" as a movie just didn't work for me, simple as that. But yet the imaginative ideas and the craziness of having impersonators living together threw up so many hilarious scenes as well as some dark ones at the same time and it is this which keeps you watching when you have long given up trying to make sense of it all.


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