Four Reasons Why ‘Dumb and Dumber’ is a Modern Classic

Perhaps we are no longer able to recognise masterpieces.

There is a tendency these days to equate comedy with silliness or a lack of artistic credibility. When last did a comedy win Best Picture Oscar? When last did our matric students study a Shakespearean comedy?

But finding something funny is what makes us human. And one of the funniest films ever made in my view is the ‘90s classic, ‘Dumb and Dumber’.

Most people think it is just a ridiculous toilet-humour Jim Carrey piece. Here are four reasons why I think most people are wrong.

1. The film is based on that mother of all road-trip stories – the Greek classic, ‘The Odyssey’ written by Homer thousands of years ago. Homer told the story of Odysseus, a hero who is trying to make his way home from the Trojan war to his wife and home in Ithaca – but the gods won’t let him, so they keep sinking his ship, sending him to islands where cyclops want to eat him, and the like. Our heroes, Lloyd and Harry, are not trying to get home but they are trying to find a home, a place where losers like themselves can be ‘plugged into the social pipeline’, as Lloyd says. And so they set off in their dog car, with very little money, to return to Mary Swanson (or ‘Samsonite’) her briefcase she left at an airport. They have to avoid hitmen, cops, local bullies (‘Seabass’) and many other obstacles on the way. There is a reason why ‘The Odyssey’ gave birth to western literature. We all are on a journey trying to find our way home. And so are Harry and Lloyd.

2. The film has an amazing soundtrack. ‘Get Ready’ by the Proclaimers, ‘Peter Pumpkinhead’ and ‘Mmm Mmm Mmm’ by the Crash Test Dummies, ‘New Age Girl’ by Dead Eye Dick, ‘Can We Still Be Friends?’ by Todd Rundgren – the list goes on. The music puts you in the ‘90s – and all that end of the century optimism we all briefly felt.

3. ‘Dumb and Dumber’ is actually a tragedy. GK Chesterton once wrote, ‘He is a sane man who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head.’ That’s this film. Unlike Odysseus, they never find their home. They never get their ‘Penelope’ – Mary is actually married. They do not even manage to get on the bus to be oil boys for a ladies’ bikini pageant tour. They fail. They just don’t have the ability to succeed in this world. That’s pretty daring for a slapstick comedy. But it feels real, and it feels cathartic feeling so much sympathy for these losers.

4. The main theme of the movie is friendship. When last was friendship at the heart of a film? How many romantic comedies basically imply that romance is the only thing in the world? This movie is really unusual in putting the friendship of Harry and Lloyd at the centre. They live in a mangy apartment, have no money (their pets’ heads are falling off even), but they have each other. When they hit the road again at the end of the film, you know that, somehow, they’ll be alright.

Next time you watch it and enjoy it much more than all the superhero fodder we are bombarded with at the moment, feel no guilt in pondering that 'Dumb and Dumber' is as good as cinema gets.