[HorrorScience] Number 23 (2007)

Jim Carrey is an actor well known to everyone, his beginnings as a comedian and his first international successes (The MaskandAce Ventura) brought laughter to all corners of the world and marked his career in an almost irreparable way.

Most of Carrey's performances are remarkably comical and exaggerated, so it is common for us to associate him with comedies, since these are the most common in his career.

The first success as Carrey in a more or less serious role was inThe Truman Show(1998) where he played a normal guy, who didn't know that his entire life was a farce who had created a television program so he could broadcast it live. After that film, the actor intertwined comedy films with others of different genres, but as we all know, his humorous roles were always best remembered.

One of Carrey's serious films wasThe number 23, directed by Joel Schumacher, where the theme revolved around an ordinary person who little by little was falling into a conspiracy belief that irrefutably relates important facts and events to the number 23, after which he begins to become obsessed with the fact that that number has somehow been controlling his life.

Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) is an animal control worker who one day receives a bite from a dog, which causes him to be late for his appointment with his wife Agatha (Virginia Madsen). Far from being irritated by her husband's lateness, Agatha spends time in a bookstore and decides to buy a book for him,one about conspiracies called "The number 23". Walter receives the gift without much enthusiasm, not being a regular reader, but decides to give the work a chance.

With the passage of time,Walter gets hooked on the book and begins to see how some of the events in it fit with his experiences as a child.. Initially it seems somewhat innocent, but as the book progresses, he begins to see more of a relationship between him and the protagonist, but not only that, he begins to fall into paranoia that everything is related to the number 23. His wife begins to worry and recommends that he talk to Dr. Isaac French (Danny Huston), a mutual friend, who tells Walter thatThere are numerous conspiracies and books on the same topic., and tells him to finish the book and he will discover how nothing he thinks is real, it's just entertainment.

But it's starting to be late,Walter can no longer lead a normal life, he has strange dreams and visions about horrible things, everywhere he looks he sees things related to the events of the book and to himself, so he decides to disappear one night and go to a hotel, specifically to room 23, with the intention of finishing the book and reflecting on everything.

However, this isolation will cause a series of circumstances in which his own family will be dragged and will lead to the final part of the film where he finallyWalter will understand why the book is affecting him so much.and the truth about the number 23.

The number 23It's an interesting moviekeeps you attentive until the endand the outcome is quite good. It could be better or worse, it depends on taste, but at leastcloses the story and makes sense of everything, something that I wasn't very sure was happening while watching the movie.

Isvery nice to see Jim Carrey playing a serious role or just acting without doing the over the top anticscommon in him, which appear even in characters who should not do them and which basically go back to the gags he did in his beginnings and that most of us Spanish speakers knew about by watching them inAce Ventura.

Here Carrey acts like a normal adult person, and due to the seriousness of the plot and the character's obsession, we won't even see a hint of humor in him once you start reading the book. It's a shame that there aren't too many serious films in his career and that even unrelated characters who shouldn't be doing their stupid things do so just because Carrey plays them (like Robotnik inSonicor Enigma inBatman Forever). Carrey's success withThe MaskandAce VenturaIt caused the public to relate him to those types of scenes and surely he has never been able to detach himself from that demand, no matter how hard he tried.

I liked the idea ofsee the events of the book as parts of the movie, with the same actors but playing other characters, is a decisive way of explaining to us what Walter is reading, at the same time that it changes the tone of the film, darkening it little by little.

With the film centered around Carrey, it's hard to give credit to the rest of the lead actors, butEveryone plays a good role and sounds convincing at all times.. They bring that sanity that the protagonist does not possess and in a way, thanks to the development of the film, they begin to sound like suspects of everything, and that is becausela película nos está convenciendo de la misma manera que convenció al protagonistay eso es muy bueno.

The number 23es una película muy recomendable, tiene buenas actuaciones, una historia que va volviéndose más interesante (y retorcida) y no dura demasiado (poco más de 1 hora y media). Si sois fans del suspense y las conspiraciones o si os gusta la faceta más adulta y seria de Jim Carrey, no os la deberíais perder.

Curiosities

• Existe mucha gente que cree que el número 23 tiene algo especial. Existen diferentes teorías y libros sobre el tema, la mayoría de los cuales usan fechas y sucesos aleatorios que casualmente se pueden relacionar con el número 23, igual que sucede en la película. En algunas culturas sucede lo mismo con otros números, buscando otras fechas y hechos para justificarlo.
• Parte de la popularidad de las teorías sobre el número 23 se debe a la trilogía de novelas de ciencia ficciónIlluminatus!(1975) de Robert Anton Wilson y Robert Shea.
• Jim Carrey también cree que el 23 tiene algo especial, su productora de cine se llama JC 23 Entertainment.
• Toda la película está llena de referencias al número 23, además de las obvias en la apertura de la película, y de las mencionadas por los personajes hay muchas de manera visual que pueden pasarse por alto, como que el autobús es el 23, la fecha al inicio de la película (3 de febrero, que para los norteamericanos es 2/3), el apartamento de la rubia suicida es el 959 (que suman 23), el cartel del Hotel King, con la palabra Hotel dividida en 2 letras que no funcionan y 3 que si… etcétera.