Friday, November 1, 2024

Me, Myself & I Movie G

screen captures from the film feature
Me, Myself and I, 1992

Shelley starred alongside JoBeth Williams and George Segal in the 1992 comedy Me, Myself & I. JoBeth Williams played Diane, a woman living in a New York apartment building suffering from paranoia and nymphomania. She has two personalities the growling, howling "Crazy Diane" and the normal, level-headed "Sane Diane" - and they're constantly arguing and bickering. Her next-door neighbor, Hollywood TV-writer Buddy Arnett (George Segal) is "Crazy Diane's" peeve; he's constantly the subject of her commentaries on sex, violence and invisible persecutors. But when "Crazy Diane" manages to seduce Buddy, "Sane Diane" takes over and the two fall in love. But Buddy's estranged lesbian wife, Hollywood superstar Jennifer (Shelley Hack), reappears in Buddy's life and comes over from California, which rattles "Sane Diane" and so "Crazy Diane" makes a comeback. Don Calfa, Betsy Lynn George, Bill Macy and Sharon McNight round out the rest of the cast. The movie was the directorial debut of Cuban-American visual designer Pablo Ferro.

screen captures from the film feature
Me, Myself & I, 1992

The movie is quite a fun ride. JoBeth Williams' Diane is a kooky character prone to paranoid outbursts and hilarious guttural sounds that she can't seem to control. George Segal is amusing as Buddy, an everyman who finds himself in love with a woman with multiple personalities and is trying to make sense of what he has gotten himself into... aside from trying to get over his marriage to a wife who clearly prefers the same sex. Shelley Hack is funny as the narcissistic Hollywood star Jennifer, who will do anything to get what she wants (her reactions to Diane's growls are hilarious). The chemistry between the three main characters is terrific. The scene where the two women finally meet and all three main characters come together is hysterical. There is a comfortable rapport between JoBeth and George; and a comfortable rapport between Shelley and George as well (They were co-stars in the TV movie Trackdown: Finding the Goodbar Killer in 1983). Me, Myself & I was released in the United States in May of 1992; and it was screened at the Cannes Film Festival that same year. The movie was released in VHS format in 1993.

screen captures from the film feature
Me, Myself & I, 1992