There's Something About Mary

There's Something About Mary is a 1998 American comedy film directed by Bobby and Peter Farrelly. It stars Cameron Diaz as the titular character with Matt Dillon, Ben Stiller, Lee Evans and Chris Elliott all playing men who are in love with Mary and vying for her affections.

There's Something About Mary was released theatrically on July 25, 1998 by 20th Century Fox. It received generally positive reviews from critics who praised its humor and Diaz's titular performance. It became a major box office success, grossing over $379 million worldwide against its $23 million budget, becoming the fourth-highest-grossing film of the year. It is placed 27th in the American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Laughs: America's Funniest Movies, a list of the 100 funniest movies of the 20th century. In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted it the fourth-greatest comedy film of all time. Diaz won a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress, an MTV Movie Award for Best Performance, an American Comedy Award for Best Actress, a Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Best Actress. She also received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. It was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy. It won four out of eight MTV Movie Awards, including Best Movie.

Plot
In 1985, 16-year-old high school student Ted Stroehmann is about to go on a prom date with his dream girl Mary Jensen when he gets his scrotum stuck in a zipper. He is hospitalized when it bleeds after being unzipped, which cancels their date. Ted subsequently loses contact with Mary.

Thirteen years later, 29-year-old Ted is still in love with Mary. On the advice of his best friend Dom, Ted hires private detective Pat Healy to track her down. Healy discovers that she is an orthopedic surgeon living in Miami. After observing her for a few days, Healy falls in love with Mary. Healy returns to Boston and lies to Ted about Mary, telling him that Mary is overweight and has four kids by three different men. Healy quits his job and returns to Miami to pursue Mary. Healy resorts to lying, cheating, and stalking to win Mary over. Healy spends several weeks dating Mary before Mary's friend Tucker, an architect with serious spine damage who uses crutches, exposes Healy as a fraud. Tucker claims Healy is a serial murderer, which enrages the eavesdropping Healy. An enraged Healy tails Tucker and discovers him to be a fraud himself: he is an able-bodied pizza delivery boy named Norm Phipps who is also in love with Mary. For years, Norm has been faking an injury to get close to Mary so that he could drive away potential rivals.

Meanwhile, Ted decides he still wants to reconnect with Mary and drives down to Florida. During the drive down, Ted picks up a hitchhiker who turns out to be a mass murderer. The murderer leaves a body in Ted's car when Ted is caught with a group of gay men while he tries to urinate. Ted is mistakenly arrested for the murder and bailed out by his friend Dom after the police catch the real killer. Ted finds Mary, discovers the truth about her, and they resume their relationship. Ted seems to have won Mary's love, until an anonymous letter exposes his connection with Pat, and she breaks contact with him. Ted confronts Pat and Norm, and Mary is accosted by Dom, who is revealed to be her ex-boyfriend "Woogie" that she has a restraining order against, and was the one who sent the letter. He wants to reconnect with her as well, which she quickly refuses, so he tries to steal her shoes (he has a shoe fetish, which is why Mary got the restraining order in the first place). Ted, Norm, and Pat arrive, and, when Mary is finally together with all of her deceitful suitors, Ted realizes that the only one who did not resort to lying or manipulation to win over Mary was Brett, who he learns is NFL quarterback Brett Favre; after learning the truth about Pat and Norm, Ted guessed that Norm was the reason Mary broke up with Brett for the apparent insulting comments he made about Mary's brother Warren (who lives with an intellectual disability). After reuniting Brett and Mary, Ted leaves tearfully until Mary catches up to Ted, saying that "I'd be happiest with you".

The film concludes with the two engaging in a kiss while singer/songwriter Jonathan Richman, who has periodically narrated the story in song throughout the film, is accidentally shot by Magda's boyfriend, who was trying to shoot Ted so he could win over Mary.

Cast

 * Ben Stiller as Ted Stroehmann
 * Cameron Diaz as Mary Jensen
 * Matt Dillon as Pat Healy
 * Chris Elliott as Dom Woganowski
 * Lee Evans as Tucker/Norm Phipps
 * Lin Shaye as Magda
 * Jeffrey Tambor as Sully
 * Markie Post as Sheila Jensen, Mary's mother
 * Keith David as Charlie, Mary's stepfather
 * W. Earl Brown as Warren Jensen, Mary's mentally disabled brother
 * Sarah Silverman as Brenda, Mary's sarcastic best friend
 * Khandi Alexander as Joanie
 * Willie Garson as Dr. Zit Face
 * Harland Williams as The Hitchhiker
 * Richard Tyson as Detective Krevoy
 * Rob Moran as Detective Stabler
 * Jonathan Richman as The Singing Narrator
 * Steve Sweeney as Policeman
 * Lenny Clarke as Fireman
 * Richard Jenkins as Psychiatrist
 * Brett Favre as himself

Production
There's Something About Mary was directed by the Farrelly brothers, who had previously worked on Dumb and Dumber in 1994 and Kingpin in 1996. According to Bobby Farrelly, the scene where Ted accidentally gets his penis stuck in his pants fly was inspired by a real incident, when their sister was listening to some records with some eighth grade students in the basement of their house: "One of the kids went up [to the bathroom] and he zipped himself up. He was in there for a long time. My dad, who was a doctor, actually had to go in and say, 'Hey, kid. You alright?'" Most of the film was shot in Miami, Florida. The Big Pink Restaurant is where Healy meets with Sully and the Miami-Dade Cultural Center was the location for the architecture exhibit Mary and Healy attended together. The hair gel scene was filmed at the Cardozo Hotel, while Churchill's Pub was used as a strip club for a scene with Healy. The makeup effects were the handiwork of makeup effects designer Tony Gardner.

Besides Ben Stiller, actors Owen Wilson and Jon Stewart were considered potential candidates for the role of Ted Stroehmann. Bill Murray was considered for the role of Pat Healy, but the Farrelly brothers thought he was too old for it. Because the Farrelly brothers were fans of the New England Patriots, they originally wanted to cast quarterback Drew Bledsoe as Mary's football-playing boyfriend, but he could not do it due to a mosh incident he had in a club. The Farrelly brothers later offered the role to Steve Young, but he turned it down due to the film's coarse nature. Ultimately, the role was given to Brett Favre.

Reception
There's Something About Mary was 1998's third highest-grossing film in North America as well as the fourth highest-grossing film of the year globally. The film made $369million worldwide on a budget of $23million, with $176million coming from the U.S. and Canada. It was released in the United Kingdom on September 25, 1998, and topped the country's box office for the next two weekends.

The film received positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a score of 83% based on 83 reviews, and an average rating of 7/10, with the consensus: "There's Something About Mary proves that unrelentingly, unabashedly puerile humor doesn't necessarily come at the expense of a film's heart." Metacritic gives the film a score of 69 out of 100 based on reviews from 29 critics.

Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars, stating "What a blessed relief is laughter. It flies in the face of manners, values, political correctness and decorum. It exposes us for what we are, the only animal with a sense of humor."

Gene Siskel ranked the film # on his 10 Best films of 1998 (the final "best of" list he did before passing away).

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
 * 2000: AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs – #27
 * 2002: AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions – Nominated
 * 2007: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – Nominated
 * 2008: AFI's 10 Top 10 – Nominated Romantic Comedy Film

Soundtrack

 * 1) "There's Something About Mary" (Jonathan Richman) – 1:47
 * 2) "How to Survive a Broken Heart" (Ben Lee) – 2:47
 * 3) "Every Day Should Be a Holiday" (The Dandy Warhols) – 4:02
 * 4) "Everything Shines" (The Push Stars) – 2:27
 * 5) "This Is the Day" (Ivy) – 3:33
 * 6) "Is She Really Going Out with Him?" (Joe Jackson) – 3:36
 * 7) "True Love Is Not Nice" (Jonathan Richman) – 2:13
 * 8) "History Repeating" (The Propellerheads feat. Shirley Bassey) – 4:04
 * 9) "If I Could Talk I'd Tell You" (The Lemonheads) – 2:51
 * 10) "Mary's Prayer" (Danny Wilson) – 3:54
 * 11) "Margo's Waltz" (Lloyd Cole) – 4:01
 * 12) "Speed Queen" (Zuba) – 3:44
 * 13) "Let Her Go Into the Darkness" (Jonathan Richman) – 1:19
 * 14) "Build Me Up Buttercup" (The Foundations) – 2:59