City Cinema Classic of the Month: The Tall Guy

Comedy/Romance. 14A, brief nudity, some language.
Dir: Mel Smith, UK, 1989, 88 min.
Jeff Goldblum, Rowan Atkinson, Emma Thompson.

“Jeff Goldblum is a paragon of gawky charm and awkward vulnerabilities in The Tall Guy, a British-made romp with the comic gusto of A Fish Called Wanda… Goldblum is Dexter King, an actor who figured he’d have no competition for American roles if he moved to London. What he didn’t expect was that there would be none. So he has become a straight man for Ron Anderson (Rowan Atkinson), an abusive superstar with a long-running show on London’s White Way… At the local allergy clinic, Dexter is smitten by nurse Kate Lemmon (Emma Thompson)… Urged on by Kate, he goes on a series of auditions and lands the role of John Merrick in a preposterous musical adaptation of The Elephant Man called Elephant!… Just when everything seems to be falling into place, he falls in with a seductive chorine and very nearly loses everything…. The Tall Guy, breezily steered along by British comedian, writer and TV director Mel Smith, is chockablock with bits, puns, stuff and nonsense. Every twist brings some new turn-on, as when Dexter and Kate’s love is requited in a rumpus of burst milk cartons and broken furniture. It’s a triumph of tongue and cheekiness.” —Rita Kempley, The Washington Post