The Farrelly Brothers have already made us laugh at fat people in Shallow Hal, amputees in Kingpin, and schizophrenics in Me, Myself & Irene so it comes as little surprise to learn that Stuck On You is about a pair of conjoined twins or to the politically incorrect amongst us – Siamese twins.

There’s not a lot of Siamese twin representation in the cinema is there? A brief appearance in Tim Burton’s elegant fantasy Big Fish springs to mind but there’s not much else in recent memory.

The Farrelly’s latest concerns the brothers Bob (Matt Damon) and Walt (Greg Kinnear), who are joined at the midriff and share the use of Bob’s liver. Together they run a successful fast food restaurant using their disability to their advantage in both their working and social lives. Although twin brothers, Bob is a stay-at-home-kind-of guy whereas Walt is much more of a playboy figure and also a successful amateur thespian. It is Walt’s desire to pursue his acting that takes them to Hollywood where he ends up something of a celebrity starring opposite Cher in a hit TV show.

Essentially though this is a one trick pony. And there is only so much you can do about two people joined at the waist, although it does have some genuinely funny moments too, but for a comedy these are too few and far between and the frequent dollops of sentimentality disrupt the comedic flow in places.

Humourous cameos from Cher, Meryl Streep and Griffin Dunne, all playing themselves, add a little spice as they all poke fun at their celebrity personas, especially Cher, at whose expense several jokes are made about her penchant for younger men.

It’s never going to be easy making a comedy about where the central character has a disability. I don’t recall John Hurt in The Elephant Man or Daniel Day Lewis in My Left Foot playing it for laughs, but well maybe I’m just being stupid as they were adaptations of true stories whereas Stuck On You is a simply a Farrelly brother’s movie, which means in this case it’s relatively inoffensive and undemanding fluff, and isn’t overly funny either.
(2/5)

Release date: 03 May 2004