The Farrelly Brothers Prove The Devil is in the Details When it Comes to Comedy
Bobby and Peter Farrelly have given audiences dozens of comedic gifts to unwrap over the years, but with ‘Dear Santa’ the brothers prove they have one more gift to top your family’s list.
They have been a part of the comedic landscape for so long, that different generations know them for different type of work. They’ve covered Animation, they’ve remade classic comedic properties like The Three Stooges, they’ve even delved into occasionally creating a Best Picture winner (at least Peter did). In that specific instance where film critics and audiences were discussing just Peter’s work, it didn’t seem right. Whenever you hear the two names spoken, they’re almost always together. The Farrelly Brothers have become so synonymous with comedy, you can’t separate the two of them at all, like strange conjoint twins.
…Someone should make a movie out of that.
Jack Black (left) as Satan, Robert Timothy Smith (right) as Liam in Dear Santa
As mentioned, they could just rest on their comedic laurels at this point, and simply cash out on Dumb & Dumber, There’s Something About Mary, or Me, Myself and Irene, but their latest challenge isn’t about winning another Oscar, if Bobby needs one he can simply borrow his brothers, this time around with ‘Dear Santa’, the two are focussed on creating a comedy classic for the entire family during the Holidays. That might seem like more of a stretch that one of the brothers breaking off to make a drama about racial intolerance while trying to sail the waters of white-savior based storytelling. Afterall, these are the men who created iconic scene were semen replaces hair gel, or who got the silver throated Keith David to utter the words “How the hell did you get the beans above the frank?” when talking about Ben Stiller’s zipper mishap.
A family friendly festive classic? Piece of cake according to the brothers. Dear Santa follows Liam Turner (Robert Timothy Smith), a dyslexic and meek sixth-grader whose parents Bill and Molly are having marital problems following the recent death of his brother Spencer and their move to another town. Adding to the problem is that Liam is too insecure to properly introduce his new friend Gibby to his parents and keeps embarrassing himself over his schoolmate and crush Emma, who is the only one in his class to defend him for his disability. Hoping things get better, Liam writes his Christmas wishlist and mails it out, but unfortunately accidentally misspells "Santa" as "Satan". Satan (Jack Black) receives the letter and appears the very next night in Liam's room. Though confused by his visitor's appearance and manners, Liam still believes he is Santa., and Satan decides to play along and offers to grant Liam three wishes.
Check out the full interview with the Farrellys, or continue scrolling for the remainder of the article.
As mentioned, piece of cake for the Farrellys. They have their process. “when we start a movie, people always ask, ‘do you just start thinking of gags and jokes ‘? We don't.” admits Peter. “We go the other way. We think of the character and what we could how we can make the characters so likable, or relatable, that you can hang your your jokes on it, but that's the first thing.” Many have noticed that the brothers have a propensity for creating characters with ‘foibles’ - or basically something to play off of. Braces, big teeth, a bad tan. There’s something always slightly off, but never unbelievable about these characters which make them memorable. Bobby mirrors his brother’s point by reiterating why a flaw is always great for building character. “Our lead, Robert [Timothy Smith], his character has his flaws. He's up against the world. He has dyslexia. He's just that kid. He's had some personal family drama going on. There's a lot on his plate. He's only 11 years old, and so he's like, the the ultimate underdog and hopefully watching this movie, you do care for him and his friends. It’s what set the plot in motion”.
The kids within ‘Dear Santa’ do, in fact, carry the film, and it was refreshing to see the Farrelly foible format transfer easily into a young protagonist. But let’s be honest, as mentioned, part of their formula involves gags or jokes that would make even the Prince of Darkness blush, or at the very least put them on the naughty list. How do brothers, who often steep in the waters of ‘Rated R’, suddenly shift to PG 13? Peter says it’s not about reexamining your core comedic beleifs, it’s creating jokes that lend themselves to the story, and not forcing anything that doesn’t belong. “We're careful in certain ways”, the co-writer says. “Of course, we're not going to push it like as far as we would push it on other things. It's a natural PG 13. This thing shouldn't be R rated. It involves like 12 year old kids. So we don't pull back, we just write to the what it should be, and in this case, it should be PG 13.”
Bobby Farrelly (left) and star Jack Black.
Another secret the Farrelly’s don’t necessarily say out loud? Just cast geniuses. Again, piece of cake. Their films may not have made the names Carey, Stiller, and Black, but appearances in Farrelly properties certainly didn’t hurt any of their comedic careers. When asked why geniuses such as those comedians seemingly want to work with them again and again, the brothers were quick to turn it around and give the credit to the talent.
Bobby, who is primarily the director indicates there is nothing difficult about working with a Jim Carey or Jack Black. “ Those are two of the most talented men on the planet. Working with Jack, I felt like I'm Andy Reid, [and he is] Patrick Mahomes. He's that he's that good, and he's that comedic, and he's so that perfect for this role. There's no one else that could have played it any better than him. He brings so much to it, even more than what's written in the script. Every day, he's got a great take on how to make it just a little bit different, a little bit funnier, little bit more likable.
And ‘a little different’ is exactly what Bobby says they were going for. Even if animation or Oscar pedagree is only on the menu once for the Brothers, they always want to make their ‘one offs’ special. “Ultimately, we try to make ourselves laugh with these stories” Bobby adds. “Do you know that this year, on the Hallmark Channel, they're gonna make 46 Christmas comedies this year? We are gonna make one in our career. So we wanted it to be a little bit different. We wanted to make a movie where you don't quite know what's gonna happen, and hopefully you have a lot of laughs and a lot of heart, and it's got a nice, nice story to it.”