Taglines: Sometimes your life comes into focus one frame at a time.
Jim Carrey plays Peter Appleton, an egoistic studio script writer in post-WW2 Hollywood. Appleton’s career is just getting off the ground when his name comes to the attention of a Congressional committee investigating the Communist affiliations of prominent Americans. Finding himself blacklisted by his studio, Appleton drinks too much then goes for a long drive to try and sort things out.
He awakens on a deserted beach near a small town only to discover he has amnesia and can’t remember anything about his past. But that doesn’t stop the town residents from remembering him as Luke Trimble, a much beloved home-town kid to whom Appleton bears an uncanny resemblance. In the weeks that follow, the townspeople “remind” Appleton why Luke was so well-liked, and finds himself living up to a new set of values he never possessed prior to his accident — and liking himself the better for it.
The Majestic is a 2001 American romantic period drama film directed and produced by Frank Darabont, written by Michael Sloane and starring Jim Carrey, Amanda Detmer, Bob Balaban, Brent Briscoe, Jeffrey DeMunn, Allen Garfield, Hal Holbrook, Laurie Holden, Martin Landau, David Ogden Stiers and James Whitmore.
Filmed in Ferndale, California, it premiered on December 11, 2001, and was released in the United States on December 21, 2001. Jim Carrey’s performance in The Majestic was a departure from his previous work, which until then had mostly been comedy films. The film received generally negative reviews from critics and, with a gross of $37 million worldwide against a budget of $72 million, The Majestic was a box office bomb. To date, this is one of only two films Frank Darabont has directed not based on a Stephen King story, the other being 1990’s Buried Alive.
About the Story
In 1951 in the midst of the Second Red Scare, Peter Appleton is an up-and-coming young screenwriter in Hollywood. He learns from studio lawyer Leo Kubelsky and his own attorney Kevin Bannerman that he has been accused of being a Communist because he attended an antiwar meeting in his college years, a meeting he claims he only attended to impress a girl.
In an instant, his new film Ashes to Ashes is pushed back for a few months, the credit is given to someone else, his movie star girlfriend Sandra Sinclair leaves him, and his contract with the studio is dropped. Peter gets drunk and goes for a drive up the coast where he accidentally drives his car off a bridge to avoid an opossum.
He comes to on an ocean beach experiencing amnesia. He is found by Stan Keller who helps him to the nearby town of Lawson, California and the local doctor named Doc Stanton to tend to his wounds. As the town welcomes him, Harry Trimble arrives and believes Peter to be his son Luke who went MIA during World War II nine years ago. Due to his amnesia, Peter accepts himself being treated as Luke by the rest of the town led by Mayor Ernie Cole as Sheriff Cecil Coleman tells Doc to “tell her slowly.” Peter warms up to the town including getting to know Harry and Luke’s girlfriend Adele Stanton who is Doc’s daughter.
Peter adjusts to the new life and helps to renovate the Majestic, a movie theater that had become derelict due to hard times. Bob Leffert, a veteran of the war that knew Luke, does not believe Peter is Luke and fears Peter may be setting the town up for heartbreak given they had lost sixty other young men during the war.
Despite this, Peter helps to restore the theater, invigorate the town, and encourages Mayor Cole to display a memorial commissioned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt after the war that the town did not previously have the heart to display. Meanwhile, Peter’s disappearance leads Congressional committee member Elvin Clyde to believe Peter is a Communist and he sends two Federal Agents to California to search for him.
The Majestic (2001)
Directed by: Frank Darabont
Starring: Jim Carrey, Amanda Detmer, Bob Balaban, Brent Briscoe, Jeffrey DeMunn, Allen Garfield, Hal Holbrook, Laurie Holden, Martin Landau, David Ogden Stiers, James Whitmore
Screenplay by: Michael Sloane
Production Design by: Gregory Melton
Cinematography by: David Tattersall
Costume Design by: Karyn Wagner
Set Decoration by: Natalie Pope
Art Direction by: Erik Carlson, Thomas A. Walsh
Music by: Mark Isham
MPAA Rating: PG for language and mild thematic elements.
Türkiye Dağıtımı: Warner Bros. Pictures
Gösterim Tarihi: December 21, 2001
Visits: 54
