There's Something About Mary

In 1985, 16-year-old high school student Theodore "Ted" Stroehmann is about to go on a prom date with his dream girl Mary Jensen when he gets his scrotum stuck in his zipper. He is hospitalized after managing to painfully unzip it, which cancels their date. Ted subsequently loses contact with Mary.

Thirteen years later, in 1998, 29-year-old Ted is still in love with Mary. On the advice of his best friend Dom Woganowski, Ted hires private investigator Pat Healy to track her down. Healy discovers that she is an orthopedic surgeon living in Miami, and spends time with her friend and neighbor Magda. After observing her for a few days, Healy becomes fixated. He returns to Providence and lies to Ted about Mary, telling him she is overweight and has four kids by three different men. Healy quits his job and returns to Miami to pursue her. He resorts to lying, cheating, and stalking to win Mary over.

Healy and Mary spend several weeks dating before her friend Tucker, allegedly a British architect who uses crutches due to serious spine damage, exposes Healy as a fraud. Healy is enraged after eavesdropping on Tucker, who lies about him being a serial murderer. After subsequently tailing Tucker, Healy discovers him to be a fraud himself: he is Norm Phipps, an able-bodied American pizza delivery guy, also infatuated with Mary. Years earlier, Norm intentionally injured himself in order to get close to Mary, hoping she would take him on as a patient. Although his injury has long since healed, he pretends to be disabled in order to gain Mary's sympathy, and uses his friendship with her to drive away any potential romantic rivals.

Meanwhile, Ted finds out from one of his old classmates that Healy was lying about Mary, so he drives down to Florida to see her. During the drive, Ted picks up a hitchhiker/mass murderer. The murderer leaves a body in Ted's car when he is unintentionally caught with a group of gay men while trying to urinate. Ted is mistakenly arrested for the murder and bailed out by Dom after the police catch the real killer. Once Ted finds Mary, they begin dating. He seems to have won her love until an anonymous letter exposes his connection with Pat, so she breaks contact with him. He confronts Pat and Norm, and Mary is accosted by Dom, who is in fact her ex-boyfriend "Woogie", whom she has a restraining order against, and the one who sent the letter. He wants to reconnect with her as well, which she quickly refuses, so he tries to steal her shoes due to his shoe fetish.

Ted, Norm, and Pat arrive, and, when Mary is finally in a room with all of her deceitful suitors, Ted realizes that the only one who did not resort to lying or manipulation to win her over was her ex-boyfriend Brett, who he learns is National Football League quarterback Brett Favre. Norm had previously confessed to Ted that he lied to Mary about Brett insulting her brother Warren (who lives with an intellectual disability), which was why she ended the relationship.

After reuniting Brett and Mary, Ted leaves tearfully until Mary catches up to him, saying "I'd be happiest with you". They kiss while singer/songwriter Jonathan Richman, the periodic song narrator throughout the film, is accidentally shot by Magda's boyfriend, who was aiming for Ted as he was also infatuated with Mary.

There's Something About Mary was directed by Peter Farrelly, who had previously worked on Dumb and Dumber in 1994 and Kingpin in 1996.[3] According to Bobby Farrelly, the scene where Ted accidentally gets his scrotum stuck in his pants fly was inspired by a real incident, when their sister was listening to some records with some eighth grade students in the basement of their house: "One of the kids went up [to the bathroom] and he zipped himself up. He was in there for a long time. My dad, who was a doctor, actually had to go in and say, 'Hey, kid. You alright?'"[3] Most of the film was shot in Miami, Florida. The Big Pink Restaurant is where Healy meets with Sully and the Miami-Dade Cultural Center was the location for the architecture exhibit Mary and Healy attended together. The hair gel scene was filmed at the Cardozo Hotel, while Churchill's Pub was used as a strip club for a scene with Healy.[4] The makeup effects were the handiwork of makeup effects designer Tony Gardner.[5]

Besides Ben Stiller, actors Owen Wilson and Jon Stewart were considered potential candidates for the role of Ted Stroehmann.[6] Bill Murray was considered for the role of Pat Healy, but the Farrelly brothers thought he was too old for it.[7] Vince Vaughn and Cuba Gooding Jr. were also considered for the role of Pat Healy.[8] Because the Farrelly brothers were fans of the New England Patriots, they originally wanted to cast quarterback Drew Bledsoe as Mary's football-playing boyfriend, but he could not do it due to a mosh incident he had in a club. The Farrelly brothers later offered the role to Steve Young, but he turned it down due to the film's coarse nature. Ultimately, the role was given to Brett Favre.[9] Chris Farley was considered for the role of Mary’s brother Warren, however his health was in a rapid decline due to his drug addictions and he was forced to turn down the role. He died in December 1997 in the middle of the film's production. [10][11]

There's Something About Mary was 1998's third-highest-grossing film in North America as well as the fourth highest-grossing film of the year globally. The film made $369 million worldwide on a budget of $23 million, with $176 million coming from the U.S. and Canada.[2] It was released in the United Kingdom on September 25, 1998, and topped the country's box office for the next two weekends.[12][13]

The film received positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a score of 83% based on 84 reviews, and an average rating of 7.06/10, with the consensus: "There's Something About Mary proves that unrelentingly, unabashedly puerile humor doesn't necessarily come at the expense of a film's heart."[14] Metacritic gives the film a score of 69 out of 100 based on reviews from 29 critics.[15] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[16]

Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars, stating "What a blessed relief is laughter. It flies in the face of manners, values, political correctness and decorum. It exposes us for what we are, the only animal with a sense of humor."[17]

Gene Siskel ranked the film number 9 on his 10 Best films of 1998 (the final "best of" list he did before passing away).

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

• 2000: AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs – #27[18]
• 2002: AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions – Nominated[19]
• 2007: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – Nominated[20]
• 2008: AFI's 10 Top 10 – Nominated Romantic Comedy Film[21]

1. "There's Something About Mary" (Jonathan Richman) – 1:47
2. "How to Survive a Broken Heart" (Ben Lee) – 2:47
3. "Every Day Should Be a Holiday" (The Dandy Warhols) – 4:02
4. "Everything Shines" (The Push Stars) – 2:27
5. "This Is the Day" (Ivy) – 3:33
6. "Is She Really Going Out with Him?" (Joe Jackson) – 3:36
7. "True Love Is Not Nice" (Jonathan Richman) – 2:13
8. "History Repeating" (The Propellerheads feat. Shirley Bassey) – 4:04
9. "If I Could Talk I'd Tell You" (The Lemonheads) – 2:51
10. "Mary's Prayer" (Danny Wilson) – 3:54
11. "Margo's Waltz" (Lloyd Cole) – 4:01
12. "Speed Queen" (Zuba) – 3:44
13. "Let Her Go Into the Darkness" (Jonathan Richman) – 1:19
14. "Build Me Up Buttercup" (The Foundations) – 2:59[22]

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