Sometimes described erroneously as the smaller, quieter, less affable of the Farrelly filmmaking duo, the cherubically preppy Bobby Farrelly has teamed with his slightly more sinister older brother Peter to reach new heights (or depths) of low-brow comedy. Though he went to college on a hockey scholarship and came away with a degree in geological engineering, he was just another slacker-in-waiting when he arrived in Hollywood to partner with his brother and Bennett Yellin writing screenplays, one of which eventually became the comedy hit "Dumb and Dumber" (1994). Growing up in a Rhode Island town without a movie theater, the Farrellys developed their brand of humor at the family dinner table "and just trying to crack each other up all of our lives." They had a feeling that audiences wanted to laugh long and hard at idiots in absurd situations, and after finally breaking through with two 1992 episodes of NBC's "Seinfeld", "Dumb and Dumber" proved their fingers were solidly on the nation's comic pulse. With Peter at the helm and Bobby co-producing, "Dumb and Dumber" teamed Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels as dimwitted buddies going cross-country to return a briefcase, which they don't realize (until much later) contains a lot of money. A flat-out celebration of stupidity, bodily functions and pratfalls, the picture succeeded on the strength of its uniformly strong performances and by not overplaying its vulgarity. The Farrellys concocted some crazily original humor instead of relying on the same, tired, recycled gags, and audiences laughed until it hurt, with the film eventually earning in excess of $300 million. They were back in gross-out form for the crass bowling farce "Kingpin" (1996), which marked Bobby's debut as co-director with Peter, but despite the presence of Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid and Bill Murray, the picture tanked at the box office, perhaps due to faulty marketing by MGM. The brothers had to wonder whether audiences truly loved their unhinged humor or if the success of "Dumb and Dumber" was merely part of the Jim Carrey phenomenon.
"There's Something About Mary" (1998) passed the acid test, proving their earlier hit was no fluke and that the Farrelly sickness was quite contagious. As Bobby told the DAILY NEWS (July 14, 1998), "We did something drastically different in this: we added a plot." They also had a female lead (Cameron Diaz) for a change, making their antics more palatable for the ladies, and the most outrageous, gross-out gags of their short career as masters of tastelessness. There was the brilliant genitalia-in-the-zipper bit and the arguably even more inspired "hair gel" routine. The Farrellys spared no one, wrenching laughter from its audience at the expense of a helpless animal and the handicapped while lampooning gays and serial killers. Though far from a perfect film, "Mary" had five or six extremely hysterical scenes, more than enough saving grace to make it the comedy hit of the summer and one of the year's top-grossers.
As directors, the Farrelly style is pretty styleless, which seems to suit their material. "We never think of any swooping camera moves," Bobby admitted to the Los Angeles Times in 1998. "But the director of photography likes to do that, so we sort of go along with him, let him do it, then cut it out in the end." They're famous for their loose sets and for employing lots of friends and family in minor roles, including the wheel-chair bound Danny Murphy, whose take on how the handicapped should be portrayed colors their movies. The brothers wrote and produced "Outside Providence" (1999), based on Peter's 1988 novel, but turned the reins over to fellow Rhode Islander Michael Corrente. More a coming-of-age story than that wacky new Farrelly comedy as promoted by Miramax, it stalled at the box office after recouping its small investment. The Farrellys then returned behind the camera for "Me, Myself and Irene" (2000), reteaming with the zany Carrey--as a multiple personality competing with himself for the love of a woman (Renee Zellweger) for more high art of the low brow, but while amusing the reteaming lacked the magic frission of the initial collaboration.
The brothers' critically drubbed half-animated outing "Osmosis Jones" (2001)--which followed the adventures of anhropomorphic germs and microbes inside the body of an ailing Bill Murray--ignited little interest at the box office, and their follow-up "Shallow Hal" (2001), which cast Jack Black as a cad who can suudenly only see the beautiful person inside of his obese girlfriend (Gwyneth Paltrow), was neither particularly funny nor especially offensive--the wan comedy failed to click on any level. Faring slightly better was "Stuck On You" (2003), with Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear cleverly cast as a set of conjoined twins, but the film's underperformance at the box office suggested that the novelty of the Farrelly's brand of comedy had grown stale. However, the siblings rebounded strongly when they set aside a lot of the slapstick and gross-out jokes and directed the warm romantic comedy "Fever Pitch" (2005), based on the Nick Hornby novel, which cast Drew Barrymore as a corporate climber whose idyllic romance with a sweet-natured school teacher (Jimmy Fallon) is threatened by his obsessive devotion to the Boston Red Sox. Even after having to change the ending when the Sox actually won the World Series during production, the film was an appealing and effective date film.