Me, Myself & Irene

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Me, Myself & Irene is a 2000 film starring Jim Carrey as Rhode Island state trooper Charlie Baileygates. No sooner than he gets married to his sweetheart Layla, he gets in a misunderstanding with black dwarf limo driver (who is the head of a chapter of Mensa), who then attacks Charlie. Layla takes the side of the dwarf, because she is also a member of Mensa, with whom Layla cheats. After giving birth to triplets (all black), Layla divorces Charlie, who is left to raise three sons all alone. However, due to his own voluntary decision not wanting to address the problem due to his job status in law enforcement, Charlie gets taken advantage of by everyone.

In some time around while Charlie is avoiding confrontation, his repressed anger develops a rude and violent Split Personality named Hank, an alter ego who shows Charlie's anger. Hank's nasty deeds include insulting a lady in a supermarket, almost drowning a little girl, sucking a nursing woman's breast, and driving his friend Dick's car through the barber shop.

The police puts Charlie in a task to escort a woman named Irene P. Waters to Massena, New York, thinking that Charlie would need vacation since that Hank is created when he kept on avoiding confrontation.

Tropes used in Me, Myself & Irene include:
  • Art Major Physics - There is no way a helicopter that size could lift off carrying 3 very large men. In fact, it didn't. They used creative camera angles to make it appear that the chopper was airborne.
  • Berserk Button: You will understand Charlie's plight in the first 10 minutes of the film. The button gets mashed. HARD.
  • Beware the Nice Ones - The basis of Charlie's role in the movie.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall - At the end of the movie Charlie's sons thank the viewer for "watching the motherfucking movie".
  • Brick Joke - The cow Charlie and Irene find on the street is apparently still alive days after the incident.
  • Butt Monkey/The Chew Toy: Charlie, after the whole town learned of his wife's affair.
  • California Doubling: Averted: The movie actually was shot in Rhode Island and Vermont. The directors, Peter and Bobby Farrelly, are from Rhode Island.
  • Cluster F-Bomb - Pretty much every time Charlie's sons open their mouths.
  • Did Not Do the Research: Schizophrenia does not cause split personalities. Granted, it's "Advanced Delusionary Schizophrenia with Involuntary Narcissistic Rage," but that should just mean he'd act like "Hank" 24/7. Rule of Funny will have to excuse that.
  • Dirty Cop - Subverted with Hank because he had a Freudian Excuse. Agents Gehrke and Boshane, however, are true to the trope.
  • Doting Parent - Charlie earns a lot of Brownie points with the audience for being such a loving father to all three of his "sons" who were obviously not sired by him. In return, the kids adore him to death and go to big lengths to help him.
  • Evil Albino - Invoked by Whitey when he claims to have murdered his entire family, but subverted when he reveals that he made up the murder story because he was afraid of Charlie's split personality. His family just moved to Phoenix.
  • Fighting From the Inside - Charlie and Hank's fights.
  • Fingore - Charlie's thumb is shot off at point-blank range.
  • Gollum Made Me Do It
  • Good Cop, Bad Cop - Charlie is a good cop while Hank is a bad cop.
  • Her Children, but Not His: Charlie's "sons". They still love their father however.
  • Jekyll and Hyde - Charlie and Hank
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold - Charlie's three sons, whom in spite of being foul-mouthed delinquents are academic savants who are also amongst the few adolescent males in any medium to consistently say "I love you Dad." And they even help him propose to Irene, too. "Will you marry me, bitch?!".
    • Hank - he makes a speech about this with Irene. Also when he apoligizes with Whitey for having him insulted.
  • Multi Character Title
  • Overly Long Gag - Killing that cow sure took a while.
  • Parking Payback - When Charlie sees a young football player drive a convertible up and park in the handicapped space (flaunting his unhandicapped status by leaping out over the door) it triggers Charlies rage-fueled alter-ego Hank, who goes to town on the car with a trash bin. The football player then emerges from the store, helping the owner of the car who is a man in a neck brace. The owner is none to happy to see what Hank did to his car.
  • Refuge in Audacity - Along with...
  • Rule of Funny - Sucking breast milk isn't supposed to give you a milk mustache.
  • Sir Swearsalot - All three of Charlie's sons fit this trope to a T.
  • Sophisticated As Hell - Charlie's "sons", who drop F-bombs even when discussing physics theories or reading instructions on how to pilot a helicopter (in German no less).
  • Split Personality
  • Taking Advantage of Generosity - Charlie putting up with this for years is part of what makes Hank manifest.
  • Theme Music Power-Up - A section of Hardknox's 'Fire Like This' plays whenever Hank takes over.
  • What Happened to the Mouse? - It never revealed what became of the guy who laughed at Charlie by the soda vending machine. All that is shown is that Hank apparently ripped the vending machine open with a fire axe.
    • The DVD has a deleted scene revealing that Charlie did exactly what what he told Irene he did; he told the guy that his comment wasn't helping and the guy apologized. Hank presumably went to find an axe after the guy drove off.
      • Then Hank was still pissed at the vending machine for not taking his money.
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