最美好的事 The Sweetest Thing review by James Berardinelli 英文影评

最美好的事，The Sweetest Thing

Is it foolish and naive of me to wonder how movies like this get made? Are audiences so undiscriminating that they will plunk down $9 to see something this creatively bankrupt? Is it pointless to open a review with two obviously redundant questions? Apparently, there is a prevailing line of thought in Hollywood that vulgarity equates to humor. Bodily fluids mean uncontrollable laughter. The more phlegm, semen, and urine there is in a movie, the better it must be. This is, of course, the mentality of an eight year-old boy, so that effectively pigeonholes the intellectual level of the average Hollywood producer. That's not to say that all gross-out comedies are bad. But something like The Sweetest Thing, which loses its sense of humor in a vat of failed jokes, twitchy acting, and general boorishness, reminds us that few things are less appealing than a comedy where intoxication is mandatory to stimulate laughter. (Or, to put it another way, don't see this movie unless you're drunk or stoned.)

 

One has to suppose that Cameron Diaz agreed to star in this movie because she thought it might be the next There's Something About Mary. Either that, or she got a really nice paycheck. At any rate, she's The Sweetest Thing's lone bright spot. This isn't good acting, but she's perky and effervescent, and her character, Christina, has an unforced charm. Less impressive is a brunette Christina Applegate, who will never live down her role as Kelly Bundy in "Married with Children". As Courtney, Applegate seems strangely self-conscious, as if she's aware that she's playing to the camera. There are a few times when she lets go and falls into place, but, for the most part, she doesn't seem comfortable. Maybe it's all those women groping her breasts in the restroom. Then there's poor Selma Blair's Jane, whose only reason for being in this movie is to see just how much degradation an actress can endure. In her case, it's a lot.

 

On the surface, The Sweetest Thing is a romantic comedy about a party girl who falls for a guy (Thomas Jane) she meets at a night club. The two spar, but there's a spark; however, Christina never gets his name, so she spends the rest of the movie looking for him. That necessitates a road trip, with Christina and Courtney searching high and low for her would-be beau. Take away the road trip, the stuff with Selma Blair, and the wedding scenes, and The Sweetest Thing has some promise as a throw-away, lighthearted romance. Unfortunately, once those elements are gone, what's left only has a running time of about 13 minutes.  www.130q.com

 

The director is Roger Kumble, the man responsible for butchering "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" in Cruel Intentions. Here, armed with an original script, he doesn't do any better. Many of the so-called comic sequences are strangely constructed - they seem to be leading up to a punch-line that never comes. For example, consider a scene in which a red-faced Jane takes a sperm-stained dress to the cleaners. As she's handing it over to the old man behind the counter, the store starts filling up with people she knows, including a priest. While we're waiting for something funny to happen, the movie cuts to another scene. Belatedly, we realize that the mere presence of the priest is what we were supposed to laugh at. Oops, too late. Much of the movie is like that - little vignettes that are supposed to be hilarious, but aren't. It's hard to miss them. They are all italicized.

 

The Sweetest Thing has its saccharine side, but you won't care enough about Christina or her Mr. Right for it to matter. We don't sympathize with these characters; we view them with a condescension bordering on contempt (which is the tone adopted by Kumble). The movie answers all of the important questions. Will true love triumph of the adversity of circumstances? (Of course.) Can Cameron Diaz do a credible impersonation of Olivia Newton-John? (Yes.) Is it a smart idea to perform oral on a guy with a genital piercing? (Not unless the girl has had a tonsillectomy.) Regardless of how you look at it, there's something sour about The Sweetest Thing.

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