Amazon.com
Say It Isn't So is touted as being from the Farelly brothers, who wrote and directed the movies
Dumb and Dumber,
Kingpin, and
There's Something About Mary. And though they didn't write or direct this movie, it certainly has the same elements: charming lead actors (in this case, Heather Graham from
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Chris Klein from
Election and
American Pie) put through all sorts of comic grotesqueries, ranging from having an ear cut off to getting a hand stuck up a cow's rectum. Orphaned dogcatcher Gilly (Klein) and incompetent hairdresser Jo (Graham) fall in love, only to discover that Gilly's long-lost mother is Jo's own white trash momma (played with gusto by Sally Field). Unfortunately, they'd already slept together, so Jo flees in shame to go back to her ex-boyfriend in Beaver, Oregon. But when Jo's real brother shows up, Gilly sets out to win Jo back--only her mom wants her to marry the ex and tells the Beaver police that Gilly is a sexual predator.
Say It Isn't So doesn't have the crude wit of
There's Something About Mary, but there are several laugh-out-loud moments, and both Graham and Klein are sweet and engaging. Orlando Jones has a zestful turn as a legless seaplane pilot.
--Bret Fetzer
Heather Graham, of the unblinking eyes and curtained blond tresses, and Chris Klein, whose innocence was inviolate in "Election" and "American Pie," get caught in a slapped-together Farrelly brothers derivative. The gross-out brothers' protégé J. B. Rogers directed it; they produced. At one point, Klein gets his hand stuck up the rear of a cow, a situation that pretty much parallels that of the audience. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006
The New Yorker