Carrey's performance was a significant departure from his previous work, which until then had mostly been comedy films. The film premiered on December 11, 2001, and was released in the United States on December 21, 2001. It received lukewarm reviews from critics and grossed $37 million worldwide against a budget of $72 million, losing an estimated $49 million.[3]
Plot
In 1951, in the heyday of McCarthyism, Peter Appleton is an up-and-coming young screenwriter in Hollywood. He learns from his Hollywood agent 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, Peter's 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 California coast, where he accidentally drives his car off a bridge to avoid an opossum.
He regains consciousness on an ocean beach, experiencing amnesia. Peter is found by Stan Keller who helps him to the nearby town of Lawson, California. The local doctor Doc Stanton tends to his wounds as Sheriff Cecil Coleman is called in to help with the case. Harry Trimble arrives and believes Peter to be his son Luke who went missing in action (MIA) during World War II, sometime after D-Day. Sheriff Coleman tells Doc to "break it to her gently". Due to his amnesia, Peter accepts being treated as Luke by the town led by Mayor Ernie Cole. Peter warms to the town including getting to know Harry and Doc's daughter Adele who, 9+1⁄2 years earlier, had become engaged to Luke the night before he went to war.
Peter adjusts to his 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 who 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, that the town did not previously have the heart to display.
Meanwhile, Peter's disappearance leads House Un-American Activities Committee member Elvin Clyde to believe Peter is a communist and he sends two federal agents named Ellerby and Saunders to California to search for him. They follow a lead about his car showing up on a beach.
When The Majestic shows his first movie "Sand Pirates of the Sahara", and discovers his screenwriting credit on the film's poster, Peter is jolted out of his amnesia. Harry suffers from a fatal heart attack before the reel change. After examining him, Doc reports that Harry's time is short. Peter cannot bring himself to acknowledge the truth, thus allowing Harry to die believing Peter is Luke.
After the funeral, Peter admits the truth to Adele, who had already suspected it. Before he can tell anyone else in town, federal agents Ellery and Saunders, Leo, and some police officers arrive. When Sheriff Coleman asks if they need any help with anything, the federal agents reveal Peter's true identity to the whole town and issue him a summons to appear before a congressional committee in Los Angeles. During their meeting, Leo advises Peter to agree to reveal a list of other named "communists" in order to clear his own name.
Later that night, the Majestic's usher Emmett admits that he knew Peter wasn't Luke after hearing Peter play a roadhouse boogie at the town festival, since Luke was more inclined to classical music, but kept quiet because he realized the town needed Luke in order to guide it out of its post-war grief.
The next day, Peter goes to the cemetery to return the Medal of Honor to its case in front of Luke's memorial. There he finds Adele. They argue over his decision to tell the committee what it wants to hear. She wants him to fight, as she believes Luke would have done. He stalks away without having returned the medal. At the train station, Doc gives Peter a package from her. Opening it on the train, he finds a copy of the Constitution, as well as a letter that Luke had written, in which he expresses his readiness to die for a real cause.
Peter changes his mind at the hearing in Los Angeles, which is heard by all of Lawson. He confronts Congressman Doyle in front of the committee. Peter gives an impassioned speech about American ideals, which sways the crowd, especially when he holds up Luke's Medal of Honor, and this compels the lawmakers to let him go free. As Peter discusses the result with his attorney Kevin, he learns that the girl for whom he went to antiwar meeting in college was the very same person who had named him to the committee.
Peter attempts to return to his Hollywood screenwriting career, but finds he cannot deal with the ridiculousness of the studio executives' ideas, and leaves Hollywood.
After sending Adele a telegram, Peter returns to Lawson, fearing he will not be welcomed. Instead, he receives a hero's welcome from the town's citizens, who have come to respect him as an individual. Peter then resumes ownership and management of The Majestic, marries Adele, and they have a son together.
Cast
Jim Carrey as Peter Appleton, a screenwriter who flees Hollywood after being accused of having communist sympathies. He loses his memory after a car accident and is mistaken for Luke Trimble, a soldier feared to be missing in action during WWII.
Bob Balaban as Elvin Clyde, a member of Congress presiding over the Congressional hearing to interrogate Peter.
The original script by Michael Sloane had the working title of The Bijou, and was the title when Jim Carrey signed on in August 2000.[4]
The town of Ferndale, California[5][6] provided many of the interior and exterior locations for The Majestic.[7] The namesake theater was built as a false-front in the Ferndale municipal parking lot, and many Main Street buildings were modified by the film company.[7]
The Majestic received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 42% based on 144 reviews, with an average rating of 4.90/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Ponderous and overlong, The Majestic drowns in forced sentimentality and resembles a mish mash of other, better films."[9] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 27 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[10] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[11]
Kenneth Turan of Los Angeles Times commented that it was a "derivative, self satisfied fable that couldn't be more treacly and simple-minded if it tried".[12]
One exception to this was Roger Ebert, who awarded the film three and a half stars and praised the film and its ideals: "It flies the flag in honor of our World War II heroes, and evokes nostalgia for small-town movie palaces and the people who run them... Frank Darabont has deliberately tried to make the kind of movie Capra made, about decent small-town folks standing up for traditional American values. In an age of Rambo patriotism, it is good to be reminded of Capra patriotism - to remember that America is not just about fighting and winning, but about defending our freedoms."[13] Ebert also praised Jim Carrey's performance stating that he "has never been better or more likable".
In 2008 interview with Empire magazine, Darabont said,
The Majestic is a movie I'm very proud of and I really love. It achieved exactly what I set out to make. And I find it very moving. But in your very magazine, somebody who praised the hell out of Shawshank said, "Frank Darabont needs to apologise for making The Majestic." And I thought, "Really? What did I do? I need to apologise? Kiss my ass!"[14]
