Dir. Howard Franklin
Ah, trashy filler movies for holiday afternoons. Larger Than Life features Bill Murray as Jack Corcoran, a mid-level motivational speaker whose long-lost circus-performer father passes away in Maryland and wills him Vera, a circus elephant (played by Tal, also the star of the truly terrible Operation Dumbo Drop). Unfortunately, both his options for ridding himself of the elephant involve sending Vera cross-country to California, either to Moe (Janeane Garofalo) in San Diego, who wants Vera to be part of a breeding herd in Sri Lanka, or to Terry (Linda Fiorentino) in L.A., who wants Vera to be a Hollywood performing animal.
As one might expect, the movie involves Corcoran learning how to work with Vera to get her to follow his commands. It becomes a picaresque of Corcoran and Vera’s journey westward, meeting up with former circus folk (Pat Hingle and Lois Smith as Vernon the Human Blockhead and Luluna the Tattooed Lady, who do a funny job of trying to get Jack to lead the carny life) and crazed trailer drivers (Matt McConaughey).
Larger Than Life is a pleasant enough diversion, with Murray’s initial turn as a motivational speaker an inspired parody, but certainly more could be expected from a movie with Murray and written by Roy Blount Jr. Still, Murray is always a pleasure to watch, even in films in a minor key. This applies even when he’s working with animals, where indeed his natural laconic style helps counter the general nauseating sentimentality that animal films tend to suffer from. Even the obligatory “dang it, turns out the guy has a conscience” part of the movie is made bearable by Murray’s arch nature - Lord knows how truly terrible this film would’ve been in the hands of someone else, say Jim Carrey.
Ultimately, Larger Than Life is an amiable comedy that’s not altogether treacly and has its moments of genuine humour. Given the track record of animal comedies, that’s high praise.