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How Jim Carrey risked his mass appeal and foretold the future in 1996 comedy The Cable Guy

Carrey’s turn as Matthew Broderick’s pop-culture-obsessed tormentor left viewers confused in 1996. But 30 years on, it seems oddly prescient

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Jim Carrey in a still from The Cable Guy. The 1996 dark comedy, directed by Ben Stiller, saw Carrey gamble his mainstream appeal by playing a crazed cable company employee. Although considered a box-office bomb at the time, the film paved the way for Carrey to pursue more complex roles later in his career. Photo: Columbia Pictures
Matt Glasby

This is the latest instalment in our From the Vault feature series, in which we reflect on culturally significant movies celebrating notable anniversaries.

Thirty years ago, Jim Carrey was arguably the most bankable comedy star on the planet.

Hot off four consecutive smash hits – The Mask, Dumb and Dumber, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls and Batman Forever – he gambled his mainstream appeal on a film that would drastically alter his career trajectory, paving the way for the mature complexities of The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Directed by Ben Stiller (Reality Bites) from a script by first-timer Lou Holtz Jnr, The Cable Guy is a manic cringe-com of surprising darkness that sees Carrey’s crazed cable company employee Chip Douglas befriending, and then tormenting, Matthew Broderick’s newly single loser Steven Kovacs.

Mixing the era’s stalker anxieties – as seen in Single White Female, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and Fear – with scattershot media satire, the film paints a portrait of premillennial masculinity so bleak that it could almost be a precursor to Fight Club.

THE CABLE GUY (1996) – Official Trailer

Although considered a failure at the time, viewed today – 30 years after its release – The Cable Guy seems oddly prescient.

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