Soapdish (1991)

I count at least ten Oscar nominations between the enormous cast of this film, which was assembled pretty much for the sole reason of marketing that they were able to assemble such a cast. Among its distinguished actors is Sally Field, Kevin Kline, Robert Downey Jr., Cathy Moriarty, Elisabeth Shue, Whoopi Goldberg, Teri Hatcher, Garry Marshall and Kathy Najimy. If there isn't somebody in there who floats your boat then you are beyond help. I apologize.

The film of a thousand stars is about a soap opera called "The Sun Also Sets", where America's sweetheart Celeste Talbert (Field, who could never have been young enough or pretty enough to be anybody's sweetheart) finds herself old and used up. Still, her writer and confidant, Rose (Goldberg), writes her into chapter after chapter, despite the connivances of rival actress Montana Moorehead (Moriarty, doing her typical, dragged-out villain (pun intended)) and her would be lover and producer, David (Downey Jr.).

Things go topsy-turvy when Celeste's old flame (Kline) and her niece (Shue) reenter her life, causing a meltdown that doesn't seem to end. Field spends approximately 110 minutes of this 97 minute film crying and yelling at people, dressed in ridiculous outfits. As Celeste's niece says on set, "This place is crawling with subplots."

Indeed, this becomes a "real life" soap opera, as one crazy plot after another emerge, some funny, some incredibly tiresome. This is a mixed bag of a film, with a lot of jokes that fall flat, some which are drawn out to exhaustion and some which are laugh-out-loud hilarious. My particular favorite is Celeste's addiction to going to the mall and pretending to be humbled when people recognize her and ask for her autograph.

By far the funniest thing about the film is watching the filming of "The Sun Also Sets". Acting well is hard for good actors, but delivering a poor performance intentionally while still making the audience believe they are a good actor is very difficult. It's pretty damn funny.

There isn't much more to say about this film. Everyone acts his part ably, and marginally overcomes the script which didn't quite reach the cleverness of its ideas. It's brisk, and good-natured which is probably all it was striving for in the first place. It assembled the actors and I suppose that was half the battle and half the victory right there.

2.5/4