If someone were to suggest that Jim Carrey and Michel Gondry‘s finest work to date is “Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind,” I wouldn’t necessarily argue with them. The film remains a landmark, a tender and raw look at a dissolution of a relationship, cleverly told thanks to a genius script by Charlie Kaufman. However, can Carrey and Gondry spark similar magic without the screenwriter’s talent to balance them out? We’re about to find out.
Showtime has given “Kidding” a first season order, with Carrey starring and executive producing the half-hour comedy that will be directed by Gondry. The show will find Carrey playing Jeff, aka Mr. Pickles, an icon of children’s television, a beacon of kindness and wisdom to America’s impressionable young minds and the parents who grew up with him – who also anchors a multimillion dollar branding empire. But when this beloved personality’s family – wife, two sons, sister and father – begins to implode, Jeff finds no fairy tale or fable or puppet will guide him through this crisis, which advances faster than his means to cope. The result: a kind man in a cruel world faces a slow leak of sanity as hilarious as it is heartbreaking.
It does sound right in the wheelhouse for both, with plenty of opportunity for Gondry style whimsy. But it always takes the right dose of realism to balance out his more eccentric tendencies, and same goes for Carrey’s work too, so it’ll be interesting to see how this all lands. One to keep an eye one, and certainly, Showtime is big booster of Carrey these, also on board the “I’m Dying Up Here,” the series executive produced by the actor, which recently got a second season order.