# Me Myself I (1999)

### reviewed by
Jon Popick

    PLANET SICK-BOY: http://www.sick-boy.com
    "We Put the SIN in Cinema"

Ever wonder how your life would have turned out if you had done a few things differently in the past? That question serves as the basis for Pip Karmel's directorial debut called Me Myself I (not to be confused with the upcoming Farrelly brothers/Jim Carrey gag-fest Me, Myself & Irene). Karmel's main character is a single woman that wonders where she would be today if she had only accepted her high school sweetheart's marriage proposal some thirteen years ago.

Rachel Griffiths (Oscar nominee for Hilary & Jackie) plays Pamela Drury, an award-winning journalist known for hard-hitting magazine features. As the film opens, Pamela has just given up smoking, found out that her new crush is married, and received a male strip-o-gram from her co-workers for her thirtieth birthday. The combination of these events, together with the nearly audible sound of her biological clock ticking, drives Pamela to go home, get blasted and look at photographs of her Mr. Right, Robert Dickson (David Roberts) – the guy she turned down several years ago.

The next day, Pamela is hit by a car. Her injuries are limited to a bumped head, but when she comes to, Pamela notices that the car was being driven by her apparent doppelganger. They go to the twin's house, where Pamela #1 learns that her twin isn't Pamela Drury #2, but Pamela Dickson, an alter ego that said yes to her old boyfriend's marriage proposal and squeezed out three of his kids. Before she can get her bearings, the doppelganger disappears, leaving Pamela #1 alone in the house just as the kids are coming home from school.

Realizing that the double is gone and that the kids will obviously think that she's their mother, Pamela is forced to switch gears and pretend to be a happy housewife. The trouble is that she doesn't know the first thing about cooking, grocery shopping or carpooling, let alone the names of her new children. Things don't get any easier when Robert comes home and Pamela has to figure out how to use a diaphragm. I have a feeling that this kind of thing happens to women all the time, which would explain why they often seem like different people from day to day.

While Me Myself I may sound like a cross between Sliding Doors and Freaky Friday, the film is actually quite well-written and deftly executed. Karmel, the Oscar-nominated editor of Shine, also wrote the script for this first directorial effort. Fellow Australian Griffiths is very charismatic and, at times, resembles Juliette Binoche in both appearance and demeanor. The film is funny, touching and will probably make you think of a few `what if' scenarios on the way home from the theatre.

1:44 - R for brief nudity, sexual content and adult language

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