America's Sweethearts

Chaos ensues at the luxury hotel where the junket is scheduled, and America's Sweethearts pokes easy fun at the cynical machinery that keeps Hollywood running. Quotable quips are delivered in abundance, and while Zeta-Jones is readily convincing as a bitchy narcissist, Roberts effortlessly steals the show with her trademark charms. All of which makes America's Sweethearts lightly entertaining, even though it never rises (like Roberts's earlier Notting Hill) to the level of classic romantic comedy, hampered by a script that too often substitutes easy laughs for ripe satirical invention, flashing a phony grin when it should be baring its fangs. --Jeff Shannon

Perhaps the fault lies in the thoroughly insipid and inane storyline, which might actually have provided the pretext for some pretty sharp satire - if only the filmmakers had known what they were doing. In this fictional Hollywood, Gwen Harrison (Zeta-Jones) and Eddie Thomas (Cusack) have been America's favorite couple both on screen and off for a number of years. Their movies are almost guaranteed to be sure-fire box office bonanzas - until now that is. Just recently, Gwen has moved in with a Latin actor named Hector, bringing to an end not only the famous marriage but also the lucrative career of the once-happy couple. Eddie has spent the last year at a Zen-type meditation retreat, trying to come to terms with all that has happened. Meanwhile, the studio is worried about how to promote the soon-to-be-released final film to feature the defunct couple, the solution being to get publicist Lee Phillips (Crystal) to gather everyone involved in the making of the movie together for a press junket at an out-of-the-way hotel in Nevada with the express purpose of convincing the public that there is some chance that the estranged divorcees might be contemplating a reconciliation.

As I stated earlier, the plot could provide some juicy fodder for satirizing the workings of the movie industry, but writers Billy Crystal and Peter Tolan have failed to provide even a modicum of wit for the occasion. It's awfully hard to identify with or be charmed by characters who are either self-centered and whiny (Gwen) or wimpy and whiny (Eddie). We really don't like either of these people and, frankly, when we see them together, we don't believe for a second that the movie going public would be as enamored of them as the people in the movie we are watching keep telling us they are. We also don't swallow the fact that Gwen's sister, Kiki (Roberts), would put up with her spoiled sister's tyrannical manipulations for two seconds let alone her whole lifetime. When Eddie and Kiki finally wake up to the truth about Gwen and begin to discover the romantic attraction that exists between them, we feel like we are already five narrative miles ahead of them - a position one doesn't want to be in when the need for audience identification with the characters is as crucial as it is in a film like this one.

Most of the attempts at humor in the film are obvious and crude, whether they involve Hector's insultingly contrived Spanish accent, a scene of a dog nuzzling Phillips' crotch, or a juvenile masturbation gag involving Eddie lurking outside Gwen's hotel room. Even the film-within-a-film, when it is finally unveiled to us, is a total letdown. Although Walken brings a cleverness and energy to his overwritten role of the film's eccentric-genius director, the movie that he finally unspools for the curious press and studio onlookers involves humor of only the most obvious kind. That leads to a final confrontation scene - in which the characters act out their little real life drama for the benefit of the dumbfounded and aghast audience - that is utterly idiotic, inane and unbelievable. Crystal's performance as the nervous-Nelly publicist involves little more than nonstop dithering in the form of cynical quips and wisecracks. It is grating and annoying from start to finish. Only Julia Roberts manages to register as a likable person now and then - but even she can do only so much in a role as shallow in its conception as this one is.

To say that "America's Sweethearts" is one of the worst romantic comedies of the past several years would be to belittle it. Considering the pedigree of so many of the people involved in its making and the expectations that inevitably go along with that pedigree, "America's Sweethearts" is one of the worst romantic comedies of any number of years.


America's hottest couple just got hotter   May 1, 2005
Danielle Muller (Sailing, sailing o'er the deep blue sea :))
8 out of 10 found this review helpful

I'm afraid I don't understand all the bad reviews this movie has gotten. America's Sweethearts is not your everday romance. Where John Cusack is trying to get over the infidility of his ex wife and coworker, while realizing that he has been harboring feelings for her sister. Who has loved him all her life, but was left in the shadow and wake of her star sister.

Its a movie of finding your true self, and that love if looked for can heal even the most despairing of hearts. In a comical way, having Billy Crystal as Cupid, the man who only wanted to make the couple famous, and ended up giving John Cusack the world.

This was a wonderful movie, romantic, sweet and comical. If you love Billy Crystal, John Cusack or Julia Roberts this will be sure to please.


They're Singing in the Desert of missed opportunities.   November 27, 2001
Christopher J. Jarmick (Seattle, Wa. USA)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful

If you can watch America's Sweethearts without getting too upset that the film dares to update and recycle Singing in the Rain by adding elements of Blake Edwards' S.O.B. and Carrie Fisher's and Mike Nichol's Postcards from the Edge, you'll find a enjoyable cast, some funny scenes and many missed opportunities that would have made a better film then the one you are watching. As in Singing in the Rain the plot of America's Sweethearts centers around a famous movie couple that splits up and for the sake of the studio and it's film gets them back together to at least act nice to each other for the benefit of the press and public. There's a somewhat mousey 'other' woman that blossoms and a key scene centers around the screening of the film.

Julia Roberts was reportedly paid 20 million dollars and she is good in a large supporting role. Jones really seems to enjoying herself, but unfortunately the script over-sells her spoiled actress character more than it has to.

The film is set up well, and the cast is willing and able to deliver what is necessary which consists of good comic timing and charismatic appeal. Unfortunately the film decides to spend too much time setting up it's premise and then goes after some rather crude and fairly obvious jokes. A vicious dog that absolutely insists on sniffing crotches is not something particularly original--but the film wants you to think it is. Several jokes about penis size culminate in a scene where the jokes become the focus of the film's biggest scene. Penis jokes aren't new, fresh, or that interesting even when they are as funny as they are here, and to make them the focus of the film's biggest scene, not only disappoints and makes the film impossible to think of as charming , but reeks of the worst kind of desperation. It's as if Howard Stern suddenly made an appearance as Buttman. Not what a romantic comedy or a satire on Hollywood needs. Even if you are amused you know the laughs were cheap and came at the expense of creating a fresher, better written scene. It's the kind of miscalculation that is all over this film. Some scenes work pretty well, others are funny but feel shoved awkwardly into the film and others waste some very capable talent. When Alan Arkin first briefly shows up as a Psychiatrist/self-help guru and then puts a nice spin on the character he is playing, it's fun. But he comes back for one more reprise that's over-done and ruins the joke completely by making sure everyone in the audience gets it - - as in poke you in the ribs and make sure you didn't miss it.... Get it... get it? Billy Crystal's affection for Catskill comic roots is over represented here. Billy we like you, and some of your jokes are funny--the first time.

Now if anyone on this planet can make Penis jokes funnier than Hank Azaria can, I am not aware of it. His supporting role as a Latino lover is laugh out loud funny. Never mind that he looks nothing like a Latino lover, his ridiculous accent and go for broke characterization are funny. Unfortunately, they are funny in the kind of outrageous, over-the top manner that is misused in the film. The film wants to be both a charming familiar romantic comedy at times and also an outrageous and sharp satire of Hollywood, spoiled stars and phony press junkets. Blake Edwards already tried to give us an outrageous farce of how phony Hollywood was with his too noisy and slapsticky S.O.B. and we also had Mike Nichol's deliver a better expose of bad Hollywood manners and star abuses in "Postcards from the Edge."

The pokes at spoiled stars, media whores and star fawners are not stunning inside revelations which haven't been explored before. Most people know how spoiled stars are and how phony the Hollywood media machine is. There's nothing daring in 'exposing' this stuff to the audience. What would have been daring is if they had concentrated more on the details that are less familiar to the audience but the film does not want to risk being too inside---not when they've bankrolled the film with expensive stars. What a glorious missed opportunity the press junket scenes were since just a few months ago some marketing folks at a major studio were exposed manufacturing phony critics and false quotes to sell movies with. Tsk tsk.

IMAGE AND SOUND

The film is presented in both a panned and scanned full screen presentation and an anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen version. The print transfer is good but the film is not visually very exciting and some scenes are innocuously lit.

If you ever want a clear reason why widescreen versions of films are preferable to panned and scanned ones just take a look at the first few minutes of this film in the widescreen and then watch it in the panned and scan version. Characters are actually cropped out of shots and the whole mood created by a slo-mo shot is ruined in the pan and scan version.

Outside of three trailers there are 5 pretty entertaining deleted scenes from the film available with or without introductions and commentary from director Joe Roth. Most of these scenes would have just about guaranteed the film would have been slapped with an R rating.

FINAL WORD:

America's Sweethearts starts out with a great deal of promise and then catapults any charm and subtlety it captures with large steeping doses of crude humor and obvious satire. However because it's a PG-13 film (though probably should have been R) every element of where this film goes is compromised. And how vicious can a film about Hollywood really get when it's produced and made and stars Hollywood folks who want to keep working in the system anyway? Some of it is very funny, and the stars charisma though wasted is still enjoyable to watch. Lower your expectations, expect some crude humor and have fun with the film if you can. RATE THIS ONE 2 1/2 STARS.

Christopher Jarmick, is the author of The Glass Cocoon with Serena F. Holder a critically acclaimed, steamy suspense thriller.


Painful to Watch   December 20, 2002
E (MN)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful

Even Catherine Zeta-Jones' gorgeousness couldn't save this movie. Thank God I saw this on the plane & didn't waste money on a rental or theatre showing. Not only was the plotline thin and boring, but I couldn't stand how it was filmed - people's heads or bodies were constantly cut off. In short, excruciatingly bad.

If you want light fun, watch Legally Blonde!