[Movie Monday] Number 23

Movie: Number 23

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Welcome to the third round of today’s Movie Monday!

The third and final spotlight of the day goes to Number 23!

Unlike rest of Jim Carrey’s movies, which are all some form of comedy, Number 23 is something completely different. This may be the only one of Jim Carrey movies that’s placed in psychological thriller genre, which I personally feel is really rare for someone as funny as Jim Carrey to be placed in. Nonetheless, it’s still a great movie and very interesting movie to watch!

In the movie, we follow Walter Sparrow who works for animal shelter and goes around capturing stray dogs. He spots a dog named Ned and follows the dog in an attempt to catch it, but it only lands him with being bit and having to go through a therapy session to see if he needs to be counseled if it’s the case that he’s been traumatized for being bitten. When he meets up with his wife in a bookstore, he’s already running late as it is for when his wife wanted to meet up with him to go out for a dinner to celebrate his birthday.

When he spots his wife, he sees her in a bookstore reading a book called Number 23 by someone named Topsy Kretts. She soon purchases the books and gives it to Walter as a book, and he begins to read it once arriving home. Right off the bat, he begins to notice the similarities between the author and himself – Such as always wanting to have to be a detective and having the same taste in books along with the name of their favorite character as their code spy name when having to be a detective.

As Walter dives deeper into the story, the more and more he begins to realize that there’s something about number 23 itself, and everything in his life, such as his birthday date, name and license number, all has something to do with number 23. The book eventually drives him to being completely obsessed with the number, and he warns his wife to be careful because he comes to believe he’ll end up hurting her due to believing that he himself is the same person as Topsy Kretts. Furthermore, it makes him believe that he actually murdered someone as well, more of a reason for him to try and keep his wife at a safe distance away from him if it’s the case that he truly have hurt someone in the past. At one point in time, his son even brings his attention to the fact that for every 23 numbers, there’s clues left to follow to find a body in order to find where it’s buried.

Is the book more than what Walter’s wife seems to make it out to be by telling him that it’s nothing more than a fiction and just something that’s driving him insane? Or is it actually something meaningful and more personal to Walter than he may come to realize?

Join Walter as he tries to find out exactly what secrets the book holds for him to uncover.