Kidding is the culmination of everything Jim Carrey has done so far, resulting in a career-best performance

GQ

The Showtime series is the first project that Carrey has taken on that perfectly suits his unusual, wide-ranging entertainment career. "In short: Jim Carrey is a complicated guy whose personal and professional inclinations seem destined, in the end, to alienate everyone," says Scott Meslow. "And it’s that messy, contradictory Jim Carrey who shows up in Showtime’s new dramedy Kidding, which offers Carrey’s first recurring TV role since In Living Color. And while that might sound like a back-to-basics pivot, the most interesting thing about Kidding is that it feels like it contains some version of everything Jim Carrey has done up to this point. The series, like its star, seems laser-focused on tackling the trickiest questions about what it means to be alive with both whimsy and wisdom." As Meslow points out, "Kidding could go the Death to Smoochy route, revealing that the beloved children’s entertainer is actually a psychopathic scumbag off-camera. But Kidding has more than lazy, ironic counterpointing on its mind," portraying Carrey's children's show host character as a "fundamentally gentle soul whose life has been wracked by tragedy."

ALSO:

• Jim Carrey is too big for the TV screen: "The man who was once known for his rubber face and high-key catch phrases feels too large for the small screen even when he is doing nothing at all," says Brenden Gallagher. "Carrey is keenly self-aware of his larger than life presence and attempts to register a performance that ranges between listless and apathetic. But, even when playing a character who is not doing very much, he is, well, too much."
• Kidding misunderstands the appeal of Carrey: It's very hard to grasp that his character was ever, at any point, genial and nonthreatening
• Kidding crafts a winning combination of searing humor and pathos, blending hopefulness and blunt reality in a way that's truly original
• Mr. Rogers would appreciate Kidding: "At its core, it offers a story to grown-ups about healing and forgiveness"
• Carrey's bubble-blowing, ukulele-strumming, soft frowns, and befuddlement are all used expertly here to build tension
• Kidding is bitterly funny, wise, heartbreaking -- and disturbing
• Carrey isn’t showing us anything we haven’t seen before: The first four episodes constitute a character study more than a TV show
• It feels as though Kidding is not quite confident that its two elegiac central questions—how to be sad and how to be good—are interesting enough
• Kidding is a comedy that isn’t particularly funny, a drama that isn’t particularly wrenching, and a character study that isn’t particularly satisfying
• Creator Dave Holstein wrote Kidding in secret without telling Carrey
• Director Michael Gondry credits Carrey for being willing to "go far" for Kidding role