The Number 23 (2007)

Director: Joel Schumacher

Screenplay: Fernley Phillips

Cast: Jim Carrey as Walter Sparrow/Fingerling; Paul Butcher as Young Walter Sparrow/Fingerling; Virginia Madsen as Agatha Pink-Sparrow/Fabrizia; Logan Lerman as Robin Sparrow; Danny Huston as Isaac French/Dr. Miles Phoenix; Rhona Mitra as Laura Tollins

[Some Mild Spoilers]

I remember The Sun newspaper running a promotional article on this film. To explain to some readers before we continue, The Sun was a right politic leaning newspaper notorious for the "Page 3 Girl", female models who'd pose topless in the page, something they stopped in 2015¹. The ad for what is frankly a bizarre proposition for a mainstream Jim Carrey film ran with the number 23 enigma, explained in that the number had power in that it could be found in multiple events if you added dates and data together, such as the date Kurt Cobain of the band Nirvana committed suicide. The Joel Schumacher film itself is entirely different from this. In fact a debate between Carrey, who becomes obsessed with this number when his wife Agatha (Virginia Madsen) gives him a strange self published crime novel about this, and Danny Huston, whose existence is to give monologues as he does here, debate this in one scene, as if the film itself wants to be more than this premise.

For me, I'm not particularly interested in arguing for or against the conspiracy. It's for me, as I have been obsessed with this film for a long time, more of an argument of the issue of objective truth, although I am fascinated by details like author William Burroughs being an early obsessive, recording every incident involving the number. It's surprising how many examples this film can bring up, and if you look online there will likely be more. It can be argued a) human beings can find patterns in everything, and b) some of the mathematical choices in the film, even as someone here who was always poor at maths, seem contrived in the choices the characters jump to calculating them. If anything though, if twenty three still appeared at certain events a lot, let's mimic Danny Huston's warm and proud vocals inherited from his father John that "twenty three is a very good number for this", and make it like how lucky number seven is. Superstition is not just a realm of the mystical and if also happens to exist even in calculus, it raises questions of how difficult it is to be able to fully gauge the concept, especially considering it would involve testing every example in a numerous world where examples would grow ad nauseam.

It is the thing the film is sold on even in the title, which proves a silly concept especially when Schumacher signals out the number in signs, as if the number itself is going to start stalking Carrey like a spectre ready to shank him in the end. The more controversial thing I could say, even over believing in the enigma, is being an unapologetic Joel Schumacher fan who even likes Batman & Robin (1997), even if it's a gaudy mess. Schumacher is a working director who is stylish but is dependent on the material being good - when it's not its nipples on the batsuit and ice puns. The result here, even if I am in the minority, is a curious hybrid between sincere drama, unintentional comedy, and some good material.

Jim Carrey at this point in his career is fascinating to consider to, as the beginning of the film even feels inexplicably like a throwback to his early career in films like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), as a dog catcher in a wacky segment trying to catch a dog. Eventually in the same film he will get his alter ego Fingerling in that book his character's wife finds for his birthday, decked out in tribal tattoos, stubble and playing a saxophone in a Sin City-like noir world. Carrey whilst known predominantly as a comedy did prove his dramatic chops in the late nineties and early 2000s, a film like Eternal Sunshine on a Spotless Mind (2004) the film many turn to for him being a great dramatic actor. Unfortunately most of his career had been not as heavy on this or not well remembered, as whilst it's unfair to dismiss a film like Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011) without actually seeing it for myself, they do disappear from public consciousness unless they are a big hit, a franchise creator or a critical/cult/kid's succeeds. He has babbled in drama occasionally since - one, Dark Crimes (2016), was not held very well - but he's fallen back into comedy or television, which is a same as he is as greater in drama as he is in exaggerating his body like rubber. Admittedly this is probably as much to do with his real life being a complex one, possibly drawing on real emotional issues, but he is good at these roles.

The Number 23 does show the strange position he is in where he's talented enough to pull off the angst of his character in the later half, where he eventually discovers that a murdered woman whose body was never found in central in the tale, but having to play the troubled family man against a premise with its layers of absurdity. When he's Fingerling, it is unintentionally hilarious just because of how he's been dressed and how everything has been shot, as whilst Schumacher is stylish as the best of Hollywood, and I like this bizarre aesthetic choice here, he can over do it at times depending on the tone. Also as much of this is the premise itself, how it plays at the aspect something every viewer has to grapple with as it leads to a series of coincidences having had to all transpire to make the premise work, be it secret sides and shocking lack of proper mental institution policies. If it was looser and more avant-garde, a premise like this from the Chilean filmmaker Raul Ruiz or someone as idiosyncratic would be digestible as the odd tangents would be matched by a director aware of how to present them. Here, because this is a mainstream film in a region where more traditional storytelling is expected, suspension of disbelief is a question for every individual viewer of this.

Ultimately, and one of the reasons I appreciate the film alongside its weirdness, is that it eventually becomes a story of redemption and has the courage to play this out fully, even if it might come off as hackneyed in context. The obvious twist is obvious to the point of being absurd itself, but Carrey's protagonist having to eventually make the most humane choice is more rewarding as a deliberate anti-climatic and moral choice than what's usually expected in these films. That in hindsight is an earnest but subversive streak of goodness to be surprised with from Fernley Phillips' script, when most films would not admit to the protagonists' having a justifiable guilt to redeem. That earnestness is matched by the touches I have grown fonder of in revisit, even if they are kitsch and silly, like the dog I have already mentioned being the curious watcher of the unsaved, all of which would be mocked by most people in that era of the late 2000s let alone our current one.

It isn't an abstract film, let's not get carried away, and there's definitely a bit of pure gouda cheese to pieces. Most people would have a time trying to get around the over-the-top edgy noir clichés, probably the most significant Virginia Madsen both as Carrey's wife and a death obsessed femme fatale caricature even Frank Miller would reject from his graphic novels, to the "suicide girl", a woman obsessed with the number 23 who kick starts the main crux of the film but definately belongs to the empty and questionable gender depictions. When you learn the novel's a confession, fed with a mad obsession with that number of pulp crime stories, it makes sense in hindsight alongside when Schumacher shoots the story within a post-Seven (1995) world. But bless him, even as a fan it just reminds me of his own snuff film thriller 8mm (1999), which was earnest in an extreme naivety in its darkness, as here it comes off as broad beforehand, especially as in contrast the real world with its dark and rick colours, a more naturalistic depiction, is so drastically different even in emotional tone to this stereotypical imagery and better as a result². That the film plays off a lot closer to a drama of a father potentially losing his sanity, everyone providing a solid performance, offers another fascinating tonal layer in spite of all that I have already mentioned which complicates as much as finds much for myself to enjoy.

It's not surprising New Line Cinema released this when you've read the premise above, they who invested in some curious productions over the years, from Xtro (1982) to Snakes on a Plane (2006). It's sad that they no longer truly exist as even the franchise that put them on the map, the Nightmare on Elm Street series, was weird from the first film and progressed onwards.  They were not long for the world after this, thanks mainly to The Golden Compass (2007) being such an expensive production that didn't pay off, but I seriously doubt the likes of The Number 23 and Snakes on a Plane were helping either. It fits the company that, if this had been a low budget genre piece, it might've at least had a cult audience, but as a bigger budgeted work, it's now one of those films that I am amazed was bankrolled in the first place. And I openly admit enjoying the film in its own odd existence, but I will also be the first to admit its a perplexing creature to exist, between sincerity and ridiculousness, mostly entirely because it latched onto its premise.

Abstract Spectrum: Weird

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None

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1) That most of the models were around if younger than twenty years old, from memory, raises some questions for myself about the entire concept but, yeah, we once had a newspaper (or two) in Britain where no one batted an eyelid to there being a topless model among the news, The Sun the tabloid which was the most famous for this. It didn't bat an eyelid to have this newspaper easily available for kids to see either, and I openly admit it was something as a young teenager I deliberately glanced through for that page, on my late grandmother on my father's side at her house, eventually just reading upon articles like the one mentioned in the review in the end.

2) The cinematographer was Matthew Libatique, who is mostly known for working with Darren Aronofsky throughout his career, which does mean he worked on Pi (1998) but also mother! (2017), which looked go but because of its director I'd argue is more ridiculous than The Number 23 will ever be.