America has a way of lionising as visionaries unconventional figures who cannot be neatly categorised, and this biopic of Andy Kaufman, chiefly known outside the States for his turn as the comedy foreigner Latka in the long-running sitcom Taxi, is a case in point. Jim Carrey's portrayal of his hero, more a self-professed performance artist than a comedian, is fine as a dramatic performance, inhabiting his subject's skin so tightly that one forgets Carrey's own gurns and can readily accept them as the protagonist's very own.
The problem is rather one of why, rather than what or how this is done. The film requires engagement with a figure who achieved national popularity for lowest-common denominator comedy with silly voices (and Carrey is therefore on autopilot here), and respect for Kaufman's real concern, which was a kind of Dadaist reimagining of what a stand-up comic was actually on stage to do. Much like Andy Warhol's soup tins or the anti-melodic assault of the first punk bands, the raison d'etre of Kaufman's deliberately inept mimes or unfunny jokes is gone after their first rendering. Meanwhile, Forman continually turns to audience reaction shots, ranging from incomprehension to disdain to fury at the audacity of the anti-entertainment before them. The director's intention here seems to be to goad the viewer to recognise his subject's genius, for fear of the alternative: being one of the bewildered or outraged audience members on screen; a hick at best.
Kaufman may have deserved better, but Forman's railroading of the viewer's responses doesn't allow us to see what that might have been.
4/10
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