Jim Carrey in New Line Cinema's The Number 23
© New Line

Mania Grade: C+
Reviewed Format: Theatrical Release
Rated: R
Stars: Jim Carrey, Virginia Madsen, Logan Lerman, Danny Huston, Lynn Collins
Writer: Fernley Phillips
Director: Joel Schumacher
Distributor: New Line Cinema

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"The Number 23"

Obsession can take many forms. One of them is a fixation with particular numbers. There is, for example, a great deal of literature about the significance of the number 23, which shows up in matters historical, metaphysical and chemical. THE NUMBER 23 starts out as a thriller about the admittedly intriguing question of why this should be, seen through the eyes of a man who finds himself increasingly preoccupied with it. However, ongoing mysteries remain ongoing because there’s no easy solution – and Fernley Phillips’ script, instead of taking a stab at a theory, opts to morph into something else instead. 

Husband, father and animal control officer Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey), who narrates for us, postulates that his pleasant life would have proceeded as normal if not for one night when he was delayed by a stray dog. This delay causes Walter’s wife Agatha (Virginia Madsen) to wander into a bookstore and pick up a copy of a strangely-bound-and-typed “book,” THE NUMBER 23, which she purchases as a birthday present for her husband. Walter becomes fixated on similarities between the book’s main character – envisioned in Walter’s imagination as Walter (that is to say, he’s also played by Carrey) – and himself. As novel’s hero Fingerling becomes progressively more and more driven by thoughts of “23,” so does the still-reading Walter. The trouble is, in the book, Fingerling becomes a murderer. How far will Walter take his connection to the literary doppelganger? 

And what, you may ask, does that last question have to do with the number 23? Therein lies the rub. Writer Phillips and director Joel Schumacher load the story with atmosphere and some creepiness, but at the same time are intent on making Walter and his wife and teenaged son (Logan Lerman) people we care about. In order to serve both agendas, the filmmakers head on a path that pulls us away from the original enigma to something that is well-constructed but at once less brain-teasing and less plausible. 

Carrey acquits himself well enough as an outwardly nice guy with a secret core, though in trying to avoid inadvertent laughs, the actor and director Schumacher have tamped down Carrey’s already-demonstrated gift for mania, which might have served to give us a stronger sense of the disturbance gnawing at Walter’s soul. Danny Huston is good as an oily friend of the family and Lynn Collins is alluring in a triple role, the primary one being the femme fatale in the book Walter is reading.