Oh, John Cusak, why do you hurt me so?This piece of mediocrity fizzles on every level. As a comedy, it's not funny enough. As a romance, it's not sexy enough. And as a satire of Hollywood, it's not clever enough. It is as flat and shiny as a candy wrapper. I watched it two days ago and I had already forgotten their names.
Gwen (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Eddie (John Cusack) were the perfect Hollywood married couple, having fallen in love with each other on the sets of their various horrible rom-coms. During the making of their last movie, however, Gwen hooks up with Spanish actor Hector (Hank Azaria) which devastates Eddie so much that he has to join a commune. But the Hollywood Machine rolls on and publicist Lee Phillips (Billy Crystal) is faced with rising pressure from the studio head (Stanley Tucci) because Eddie and Gwen's director (Christopher Walken) has taken the print hostage and refuses to screen it until the press junket. In order to distract the press from realizing there's no film until the last day, Lee tries to convince them that Eddie and Gwen have reconciled despite the fact that she's trying to serve him with divorce papers and he's falling for her sister/assistant Kiki (Julia Roberts).
I love John Cusack but I think he was woefully miscast here. They needed more of a pretty-boy or somebody better suited to this type of "comedy". Catherine Zeta-Jones' character is so annoying and grating, I wanted to punch the TV. She is clearly meant to be so, but there's no depth to the character. Or to any of them, really. Gwen is spoiled and shallow. Eddie is conflicted. Kiki is a paragon of virtue with no spine. These aren't characters except in the flimsiest of children's books. If you are only interested in a fluff piece, by all means check this out. Everybody else can go re-watch High Fidelity.
No comments:
Post a Comment