I Love You Phillip Morris

I Love You Phillip Morris centres on Steven Russell, a small-town police officer and church organist with a wife and a conventional life. After a serious car accident he decides to stop hiding who he is and to live openly as a gay man, a choice that soon proves expensive. To fund his new lifestyle he turns to fraud and deception, which lands him in a Texas prison. There he meets Phillip Morris, a soft-spoken fellow inmate, and the two begin a relationship. When the prison system separates them, Steven devises one elaborate scheme after another to get back to the man he loves, often succeeding against the odds.

The film is the feature directing debut of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, who also wrote the screenplay. It came before their later collaborations Crazy, Stupid, Love., Focus and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Jim Carrey plays Steven, Ewan McGregor plays Phillip, and Leslie Mann appears as Debbie, with Rodrigo Santoro, Antoni Corone and Brennan Brown among a credited cast of 91. Andrew Lazar and Far Shariat produced the American-French co-production, made for about 13 million dollars, which took roughly 21 million dollars worldwide.

Audience response has been moderate: on IMDb the film holds 6.6 out of 10 from around 103,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.4 out of 10 from 1,871 votes. A critics' rating of 6.7 out of 10 from 160 reviews places it slightly above both audience scores, suggesting reviewers responded a little more warmly than general viewers to this comedy-drama mix of crime, romance and farce.