‘The Cable Guy’: Jim Carrey’s weirdest and most underrated performance
Standing still is tantamount to going backwards in Hollywood, and Jim Carrey was fully aware that he couldn’t simply rely on his tried-and-trusted schtick forever, even though it transformed him from a relative unknown to an overnight superstar.
Erupting out of nowhere to become one of the most popular stars in the business, Carrey was a made man after headlining Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber within months of each other in 1994, with his manic style of overacting, exaggerated line deliveries, and comic pratfalling marking him out as a talent like no other.
Striking while the iron was scalding hot, Carrey immediately dived into the world of blockbuster franchises by bringing his distinctive stylings to Batman Forever – much to Tommy Lee Jones’ chagrin, it should be noted – before playing it safer still with sequel Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. He couldn’t stay in his preferred wheelhouse forever, though, but nobody was quite sure to make of it when he did.
The majority of the buzz surrounding The Cable Guy was whether or not it would live up to the $20million paycheque Carrey landed for the privilege of starring, which made him the highest-paid actor in history at the time. The marketing leaned into what audiences wanted to see to the point it was somewhat misleading. The film may feature plenty of his performative eccentricities, but there was something much darker lurking just underneath the surface.
Carrey’s Chip Douglas is the titular cable guy who befriends Matthew Broderick’s customer by offering him sweet deals. However, when he finds his attempts at forging a genuine friendship continually falling on deaf ears, he evolves into a sinister stalker who goes out of his way to make the life of Steven Kovacs a misery, heading down an increasingly dark path to make it clear how agreeing to be his buddy would have been the smarter and safer option.
Nobody was really aware at the time that Carrey had the chops to be a powerhouse dramatic actor, but The Cable Guy offered the first hint there was much more to him than endless mugging. As much as the performance is reliant on his established persona, the entire point is subverting what everyone had come to expect from the star and twisting it into something genuinely unsettling.
Chip was raised entirely by his television; he barely has any social skills to speak of, has no boundaries whatsoever, and can’t take a hint. Those are the traits of an introvert on paper, but in Carrey’s hands, he turns the erstwhile antagonist of The Cable Guy into a force of nature, albeit a destructive one. He lulls everyone – character and audience alike – into a false sense of security, only to turn on a dime and reveal himself to be a borderline sociopath. It’s a difficult thing to pull off, but the star makes it look eerily natural.
The subtle changes in his cadence and increasingly threatening body language gradually hint at the evolution of his arc from endearing goof to prospective mass murderer, and while that’s the bread and butter of the highly specific ‘everyday guy is actually insane’ subgenre, Carrey manages to do it without foregoing the weirdness inherent to his entire appeal. He’s a movie star doing the things that made him a movie star, but eventually, it becomes clear that nobody is supposed to be laughing.
The Cable Guy is sly, subversive, borderline bleak to the point of nihilism, but engrossingly watchable. It may not have been the hit everyone was expecting to be, but part of the reason why is because Carrey knew he was only planning to give the people what they wanted to a certain degree before flipping the script and embarking on a masterclass in maniacal histrionics. It’s bold, strange, bizarre, and unsettling, but it nonetheless ranks as one of his best-ever performances.