The number 23

Year of release : 2007

Run time : 1h37m

Genre : Psychological Thriller

Cast : Jim Carrey, Virginia Madsen, Logan Lerman, Danny Huston

Director : Joel Schumacher

Walter is a dog catcher working for the Animal Control Department. Although his shift is over, because of the way he talked to his co-worker at the Christmas party on December 23th, the woman sends him to catch a stray dog.

Walter almost catches it, but because he checks its name tag, the dog bites him and runs away. Walter runs after it, and sees the dog stopped on the grave with the name Laura Tollins.

Because he needs to go to the doctor’s, he is late to meet his wife, who enters a library, and buys him a book, after she skimmed through it, called “The number 23”, written by Topsy Kretts. They go see her friends on his birthday, for he doesn’t have any friends.

Walter starts reading the book while at the party, and becomes entranced by it.

The next day he goes to the psychologist assigned at work, to make sure he is no danger to dogs now, and he seems to hold no grudge, and is given a day off.

Walter uses this time to read more of the book, as he is on Chapter 2.

The detective in the book, Fingerling, narrates his story starting with his childhood, when he used to love detective stories, and when he found the widow living next door d3ad on her bed, while chasing her dog.

Walter tells his wife the book and its characters remind him of his childhood.

Reading more, Fabrizia is introduced to the story, and she seems to like Fingerling because he is a detective and has a gun, liking the danger, liking it rough, if you know what I mean.

One day detective Fingerling meets the Suicide Blonde who tells him about how the number 23 ruled her life, and she wanted out. What she tells him gets to him, and he thinks he got to her too, as he thinks she got over k1lling herself, but leaving her building, she falls to her d3ath right in front of him.

Walter starts becoming more and more obsessed with the book, starting to add the letters’ numbers to see if they add to 23, and they do. Not just that, he sees the number in everything in his life : the color his wife chose to paint the walls of the living-room is number 23, he met his wife when he was 23, the day they met ads up to 23, the day they married ads up to 23, and more.

In the book, Fabrizia seems to be turned on by danger and death.

In real life, Walter gets obsessed with the number of shoes his wife has, 23, and starts adding up the letters’ numbers on his skin.

Walter goes to see their friend, Isaac French, who tells him more lore about the number 23, after which he says it’s all magical thinking, and if he’s looking for number 23, he is going to find it .

In the book, after telling the department shrink he k1lls Fabrizia in his dreams, doctor Phoenix tells him to take a break. Without a gun, Fabrizia doesn’t want him anymore, as she thinks he’s not a detective anymore. He trashes her closet, and throws her shoes in the trash, because they are 23 pairs.

Doctor Phoenix offers to talk to Fabrizia, and Fingerling follows them, seeing them together.

In real life, Walter sees Isaac talking to his wife, and gets suspicious.

After having a nightmare in which he k1lls his wife, Walter moves into a hotel, and asks for the room number 23. An old man in a wheelchair seems to recognize him.

In the book Fingerling k1lls Fabrizia, and when the man she was cheating on him with comes to see her, he finds her d3ad tied to the bed, and the police charge him with k1lling her.

In real life after finally finding the dog who got him into this mess, on the same grave again, he starts looking into the name Laura Tollins, after he realizes she died on her 23th birthday. The priest tells him he doesn’t really know if she’s dead, as her body was never found.

Walter realizes what was depicted in the book matches Laura’s love story with the professor, and thinks he k1lled her.

The more he looks into it, the more Walter starts to think the book was written about him. But by who and why?

I personally enjoyed the movie. I didn’t know about this number 23 enigma. In numerology I know that everything must be added until it gives a single digit number, so it should be number 5, not 23, but whatever.

I liked how just like when reading a book in real life, when Walter reads the book, the characters look like the people Walter knows.

I didn’t understand how come his wife read it while waiting for him at the library, within a few minutes, but it took him a few days to finish it, although he had a day off.

I liked the twist at the end. SPOILERS I liked the idea that forgetting something and being introduced to it again, the obsession comes back in full force. It’s never gone, it just waits patiently to be awakened.

I didn’t like the ending.

The acting was good, and Jim Carrey carried his role well, considering he mostly played in comedies before this role, but I think that someone like Tom Cruise or James McAvoy would have played the character with more depth, because with such a character on this level of obsession it should be seen in their face and mannerism, and the 2 I mentioned are good at that.

Jim Carrey was nominated for a Raspberry Award for his performance, for Worst Actor.

I liked the soundtrack.

The visual effects were good, the scenes representing the book reenactment are over saturated, and I don’t quite like the look because it gives the vibe of bad visual effects.

The movie only has a user score of 6.3 on Metacritic, with a 56% popcorn meter on Rotten Tomatoes, against a tomato meter of 7%.

Cinema Score audiences graded the movie a B-, while the ones of IMDB graded it a 6.4.

The movie grossed 77.6 million dollars, against a budget of 30 million dollars, being considered a commercial success!

The movie was in the works since 2002!

You can watch the full movie for free on the Ok.Ru platform.

Rating : Worth a watch !