It's the year 2000, and Dick Harper (Jim Carrey) has a cozy suburban existence, living in a well-to-do subdivision with his
travel-agent wife Jane (Tea Leoni) and their little boy Billy (Jacob Davich). Dick works for the Globodyne Corporation, one of those companies where you're not sure what they actually "do," and where the employee parking lot has row after row of identical BMWs. They're in Southern California, and it's always sunny. Life is good. "Fun with Dick and Jane" catches up with the Harpers on the day that Dick is made Vice President of Communications -- just in time to be the fall guy when the company goes belly-up due to some Enron-style malfeasance on the part of CEO Jack McCallister (Alec Baldwin) and CFO Frank Bascombe (Richard Jenkins). Jane has quit her job at the travel agency in anticipation of Dick's promotion, and now Dick doesn't have a job, either. Oh, and he might be indicted. The "fun" in the title would be seen as ironic by Dick and Jane themselves, but for us as onlookers, what transpires next is a jolly good time indeed. The one-line summary of the movie (a remake of a 1977 George Segal/Jane Fonda comedy) says that Dick and Jane turn to convenience-store robbery to pay the bills. But that doesn't happen until halfway through; the movie is actually about a decent couple who are driven to extremes by a lousy economy and bad luck. "We followed the rules and we got screwed," Dick says.
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