I Married A Strange Person

Director: Bill Plympton
Screenwriters: Bill Plympton, P.C. Vey

Institute History

  • 1998 Sundance Film Festival

Description

Bill Plympton has single-handedly drawn an animated feature extravaganza—one designed for adults who don’t care about political correctness. Plympton exaggerates the simplest events of everyday life with humor and turns them into an out-of-this-world romp. Not for the weak-stomached, this cartoon is sure to satisfy all those looking for an escape into a world even more twisted than ours.

Newlywed couple Grant and Kerry Boyer prove they can stick together through good times and strange. It’s not so easy, though, when Grant discovers he has mysterious powers that bring all his wishes—including mere thoughts—to life. When he fantasizes about having sex with three women at a time, Kerry breathlessly pleads with him to concentrate on her. As Grant watches his neighbor mow the lawn, blades of grass come to life and break into a catchy musical number to protest their execution. Even the in-laws aren’t safe as Grant imagines a badgering “Mom” with cockroaches spilling from her mouth.

Kerry has seen enough of this strangeness, and she leaves him. From there the movie becomes completely bizarre, as three evil men try to capture Grant and his special powers so they can rule the world. His only defense is to kick his imagination into high gear, turning armies into lizards and bullets into hamburgers. Even though she thinks he is a total weirdo, Kerry remembers her wedding vows and comes to rescue her beloved, “great-in-bed” husband.


Bill Plympton, Director
Bill Plympton was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1946 and began his career as an illustrator and cartoonist. After a string of successful short films, including Boomtown (1985), Drawing Lesson #2 (1987), Your Face (1987), One of Those Days (1988), How to Kiss (1995), 25 Ways to Quit Smoking (1995), and Plymptoons (1995), and numerous awards, he made the full-length animateed feature The Tune, which played at Sundance in 1992. He has also completed two live-action features, J. Lyle and Guns on the Clackamas.

— Mary Kerr

Screening Details

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