Stuck on You (PG-13, 2003)

STUCK ON YOU centers on Bob (Matt Damon) and Walt (Greg Kinner) Tenor, conjoined twins who own a small restaurant on Martha's Vineyard. Bob is the shy one who is carrying on an email romance with a girl in California. Walt is the outgoing ladies' man who wants to be an actor. Following a triumph in his production of "Tru," the one-man show about Truman Capote, he tells Bob he wants to go to Los Angeles to try to make it as an actor. Soon they are installed in the Rising Star apartments and Walt is meeting with agents and going on auditions. They run into a couple of celebrities, including Cher and Meryl Streep. Cher decides that the best thing she can do to get out of a contract to star in an idiotic television series about a lawyer/investigator team called "Honey and the Beeze," is to exercise her right to select her leading man by insisting on Walt. Meanwhile, Bob has finally met his email-pal in person, but has kept the special nature of his relationship with Walt a secret.

The Farrelly brothers shifted the mix a bit with this movie. There is still plenty of outrageous physical humor, but with more sweetness than slapstick. And they've even added a new element -- subtlety. Okay, someone's head slams into a post before the credit sequence is over. And many of the jokes come from the challenges of the main characters' physical condition. But some of the funniest moments come from off in the corners of the frame including sly, even understated, satire about show business.

Damon and Kinnear give full-scale performances and make their characters both hilarious and touching. The way the brothers support each other physically and emotionally is a delight. Eva Mendes is adorable as the starlet whose reaction to finding them joined at the abdomen is to ask where they had it done. Whatever "work" Cher has had done has removed some of the expression from her face, but she is game and seems to enjoy spoofing her diva image. Streep is just a hoot, especially in her last scene. Be sure to watch through the end credits for a moving speech by one of the disabled actors who appears in the movie, describing what the experience has meant to him.

Studio: Twentieth Century Fox
Director: Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly
Cast: Eva Mendes, Greg Kinnear, Matt Damon
Genre: Comedy
Run time: 100 minutes
Theatrical release: December 12, 2003
DVD release: April 27, 2004
MPAA Rating: PG-13
MPAA explanation: crude and sexual humor, and some language