America's Sweethearts

As satirical looks at Hollywood go, America’s Sweethearts is perhaps as pointless as it gets. In fact – beneath the veneer provided by its impeccable A-list cast, initially promising premise and shocking suggestion that Hollywood folk may be a tad on the shallow side – it’s as dumb and as twee a romantic comedy as has been spewed forth since You’ve Got Mail.

Simpering, pampered Eddie Thomas (Cusack), loves his missus Gwen Harrison (Zeta-Jones) – despite the fact that she’s a hellish diva bitch – and together, as stars of such pastiche movies as Requiem For An Outfielder and Sacha And The Optometrist, the couple are the movie’s eponymous sweethearts of America.

Unfortunately, Gwen has left Eddie for a narcissistic and buffoonish Spanish co-star (Azaria). Consequently, Eddie has had a nervous breakdown and their adoring public suddenly isn’t quite as adoring anymore. Still, the studio has their last movie together in the can and are extremely anxious that it be well-received – but tragically, cannot get access to the finished film as it remains in the possession of eccentric auteur Hal Weidmann (Walken).

Weidmann will only premiere the movie at a press junket: enter Lee Philips (Crystal), a veteran PR merchant with the aim of bringing the unhappy couple together for a public appearance to mark the aforementioned screening. Further complications look set to arise because Kiki, Gwen’s much put-upon sister cum devoted personal assistant, is also in love with Eddie. And before you have time to yawn, the sorry proceedings limp towards an all-too-predictable conclusion.

While America’s Sweethearts certainly had potential to be witty and self-referential, it never gets around to being remotely caustic, erring instead on the side of unbearable fluffiness. It will also leave even the most patient viewer with many frustrating and unanswerable questions. Why is Billy Crystal so funny outside his movies and consistently unfunny in them? Why is the script co-written by Peter Tolan, writer of the Larry Sanders Show? Is the same person who cast Michelle Pfeiffer as the dowdy waitress in Frankie & Johnny responsible for the heinous error of casting Julia Roberts as an über-frump? Most importantly, what possessed the generally reliable John Cusack to tarnish his CV with such lazily constructed rubbish?

Admittedly, Cusack does his best with the material – as does Zeta-Jones – and Walken’s cameo as a highly-strung director is not without its charms. But this is small compensation from a movie that thinks sticking Julia Roberts in a prosthetic fat-suit makes for side-splitting comedy, labouring under the mistaken belief that the obese are inherently hilarious.

Clearly, then, if it’s cutting satire you’re after, then you’d better check out the newly reissued Sweet Smell of Success, and give America’s Sweethearts the widest of wide berths.