By Tracey Leibach

The Farrelly brothers are proud to make “movies” and not “films.” And their movies are, well, bawdy. (Critics also have described them as “outrageous,” “offensive,” “irreverent,” “scatological,” and downright “gross.”)

But in less than a decade, Bobby Farrelly ’81 and older brother Peter Farrelly have struck it rich in Hollywood with their signature brand of outrageous comedy. They’ve written, directed, and produced some of the biggest comedies in recent years, and are credited with giving a much-needed facelift to the genre. The pair’s third picture, There’s Something About Mary, earned more than $450 million and catapulted the Farrellys to the top of the Hollywood heap.

The brothers set out to write and direct popular comedies that would appeal to a wide audience. “We’re not trying to make any artistic statement. Our movies are just for entertainment value,” Bobby Farrelly, 43, told the Boston Globe last year. “In a way we make the movie for our own friends, the people we know and trust. If they like it, we like it. We don’t play to the critics, because critics are rough on comedy. But there is a need for comedies at the multiplex, and someone has to make them.”

The Farrellys debuted with the 1994 box-office megahit Dumb and Dumber, starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels. They followed up in 1996 with the bowling spoof Kingpin, with Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid, and Bill Murray.

Then along came Mary in 1998, bolstering the brothers’ reputation as a powerful force in Hollywood.

Their most recent effort, Osmosis Jones, a combination of live action and animation, was released in mid-August. “An epic adventure of microscopic proportions,” the movie stars Bill Murray, Molly Shannon, and Chris Elliott, and the voices of Chris Rock, Laurence Fishburne, and David Hyde Pierce. The live action takes place outside the body of Murray’s character, Frank Detorri. The animation—complete with all sorts of bodily functions and fluids—occurs inside Frank’s body, the City of Frank.

Entertainment Weekly’s Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote, “If you’re any kind of aficionado of phlegm, mucus, pus, and related body waste management—and who among us is not?—you’ve got to admire the tenderhearted obsessiveness with which the filmmaking Farrelly brothers, Peter and Bobby, pursue grossness as the great social leveler.”

“Tenderhearted” and “grossness” aren’t often used in the same sentence—but in the case of the Farrellys, this seeming contradiction sets their work apart. Beneath the goofy gags and bathroom humor lies a sweet story; the pursuit of love is a major theme of their movies.

Scene from Dumb and Dumber:
Lloyd (Jim Carrey): “What are the chances of a guy like you and a girl like me ending up together?”
Mary (Lauren Holly): “Not good.”
Lloyd: “Not good, like one in a hundred?”
Mary: “I’d say more like one in a million.”
Lloyd: “So you’re telling me there’s a chance!”

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