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Like The Score, which came out earlier this month, America's Sweethearts features a fantastic cast. The lead quartet of Julia Roberts, John Cusack, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Billy Crystal is backed-up by a supporting ensemble of Hank Azaria, Christopher Walken, Alan Arkin, and up-and-comer Seth Green. Now, you might have a personal bias against one or two of those actors, but even the cynic has to admit that that's a dynamite line-up. Unfortunately, the movie itself is a dud.

The premise of America's Sweethearts has promise. Gwen (Zeta-Jones) and Eddie (Cusack) are two movie stars who've built their careers playing opposite each other in fluffy romantic comedies. But when their off-screen marriage falls apart, their on-screen endeavors fall flat. They've done one last movie together, however, and now they have to appear at the press junket and convince the press that they still have the magic touch. Helping out are marketing impresario Lee Phillips (Crystal) and Gwen's sister and personal assistant Kiki (Roberts).

A scathing satire of the Hollywood junket circuit is long overdue, but screenwriter Billy Crystal and director Joe Roth are not the men for the job. Instead of lampooning the incestuous relationships of stars, publicists, and the entertainment press, Crystal and Roth take the easy way out. Stanley Tucci is a hypocritical studio exec and Zeta-Jones is a self-absorbed actress, but everyone else comes off smelling like roses.

Since satire is not on the menu, Crystal's screenplay dishes up comic desserts like a Spaniard with a lisp who's obsessed with the size of his genitals (Azaria), an Indian therapist (Arkin) who throws out non-sequiturs
like "Life is a cookie," and numerous crotch and masturbation jokes. Admittedly, some of them are actually funny, but they're cheap laughs.

Joe Roth, who's spent most of the last 12 years as a studio exec himself, is best known as a director for Revenge of the Nerds 2. That's not an auspicious resume, and America's Sweethearts looks like a film directed by a producer. There are way too many reaction shots, and the cinematography and editing are mediocre at best. And two flashback scenes to when Kiki was 60 pounds heavier are genuinely bad. Let's just say Julia Roberts as overweight is not believable, and her "fat suit" doesn't help.

Despite my disappointment with America's Sweethearts (it could've been so much better), the storyline about Eddie and Kiki finding true love is both well-done and affecting. Roberts and Cusack have great chemistry together, and their likable personas have the audience rooting for them from the first act. Cusack is perfect for the part of a jilted husband who finds love right underneath his nose, and Roberts (and her smile) shines as the
good-natured woman who finally escapes from under her sister's shadow. Seth Green (Austin Powers) continues to prove that he is one of the finest young comic actors around.

In the end, America's Sweethearts fails not so much because it's a terrible movie but because it doesn't live up to its potential. But if you're in the mood for a fluffy romantic comedy, you might go away happy. And, hey, you get to see an extended sequence of a dog licking Billy Crystal's crotch.
That's humor! 

J. Robert Parks  7/24/2001