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- Published: Sunday, 02 January 2011 19:42
- Written by Lupe Haas
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Funnyman 
Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor star as two gay men in love in the true story I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS. I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS is an unconventional story of a love that knows no bounds. Jim Carrey is Steven Russell, a man who will cheat, lie and steal to be with the one he loves played by Ewan McGregor. It is a bizarre story, but true, and Jim Carrey plays Steven Russell with conviction (pun intended).
In the Texas State Penitentiary is a man named Steven Russell who is serving a life sentence. He’s never killed anyone, he’s never used a gun, what he did was much, much worse; he embarrassed the state of Texas. Jim Carrey (The Grinch) plays Steven Russell, a man who did everything by the book until one day when he nearly loses his life in a car accident. While being loaded into an ambulance he has an epiphany, life is not worth living unless you can be yourself. So he leaves his wife, announces that he is gay, and begins a life of crime to support his new homosexual lifestyle.
Russell moves to Miami Beach, gets a boyfriend and become a feature in the decadent nightclub scene. Soon he is racking up major debt and starts committing insurance fraud to pay for his extravagant lifestyle. When the lies finally catch up with him and he’s thrown into jail, he becomes an expert of the law and a wizard of prison bureaucracy.
After multiple escapes and recaptures Russell meets Phillip Morris, Ewan McGregor (The Ghost Writer). Philip is a shy, sweet reserved man and Steven is totally smitten with him. When Phillip is transferred to another cellblock they begin a romance of secret letters. Then Steven accomplishes the impossible, he falsifies documents and gets himself transferred into Phillip’s cell.
Together they live in bliss with Steven protecting and caring for his more demure lover. But when they get separated again, Steven moves heaven and earth to reunite himself with his one true love, even to the point of faking his death.
I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS is strange, but it is also very sweet. It is a love story with obstacles and one that you’ll never forget.
I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS is in select theaters and going wider January 7.