The Majestic

The Majestic is a 2001 American romantic drama film directed and produced by Frank Darabont, written by Michael Sloane, and starring Jim Carrey in the leading role. The film also features Bob Balaban, Brent Briscoe, Jeffrey DeMunn, Amanda Detmer, Allen Garfield, Hal Holbrook, Laurie Holden, Martin Landau, Ron Rifkin, David Ogden Stiers, and James Whitmore. The film depicts a 1950s Hollywood screenwriter suspected of being a communist. After suffering amnesia as the result of a road accident, he is taken in by the residents of a small town, who mistake him for a local resident who went MIA while serving in the military during World War II. Carrey's performance was a significant departure from his previous work, which until then had mostly been comedy films. The film premiered on December 11, 2001, and was released in the United States on December 21, 2001. It received lukewarm reviews from critics and grossed $37 million worldwide against a budget of $72 million, losing an estimated $49 million. Plot In 1951, in the heyday of McCarthyism, Peter Appleton is an up-and-coming young screenwriter in Hollywood. He learns from studio lawyer Leo Kubelsky and his own attorney Kevin Bannerman that he has been accused of being a communist, because he attended an antiwar meeting in his college years, a meeting he claims he only attended to impress a girl. In an instant, Peter's new film, Ashes to Ashes, is pushed back for a few months, the credit is given to someone else, his movie star girlfriend Sandra Sinclair leaves him, and his contract with the studio is dropped. Peter gets drunk and goes for a drive up the California coast, where he accidentally drives his car off a bridge to avoid an opossum.