America’s Sweethearts

America’s Sweethearts

America’s Sweethearts, a film better than any other comedy about Hollywood, is also based on the same story as Singin’ in the Rain. Both movies begin with a look at famous couples who are separated off screen but have amazing chemistry on it. Each has a smart studio head and an eager assistant. They both have girls who are plain until they suddenly aren’t. They end with disastrous test screenings. The difference between them is that instead of one Hedda Hopper-type columnist there’s now a whole junket of freeloaders.

Here’s a quick casting key: Julia Roberts plays Debbie Reynolds, Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Jean Hagen, John Cusack plays Gene Kelly, Billy Crystal plays Donald O’Connor, Stanley Tucci (the studio head) is Millard Mitchell. Added to the mix are two grotesque caricatures; one funny (Christopher Walken’s auteur director), one overdone (Hank Azaria’s Spanish lover). Both movies are about a troubled mega-million-dollar production that could save or sink the studio.

There’s nothing wrong with going back to an old favorite for inspiration in theory. But “Singin’ in the Rain” unfolded gracefully and without fuss, while “America’s Sweethearts” lacks even enough inner confidence to know where it’s going or what it is. This could have been another classic comedy in theory, but the teeth never get sunk in deep enough and the focus isn’t tight enough.

What really disappointed me was the junket scene; smack in season of fake critics and phony quotes about nonexistent movies, we’re ready for savage satire by now movies like this should at least give us some fresh material to work with here but no such luck: The movie indulges itself outrageously but lets its junket blurbsters off way too easy: They’ve been invited to a remote desert location for the premiere of a movie that may not even exist; the studio P.R. ace (Crystal) claims he can distract them from the missing movie by convincing them the stars are in love again.

Now, truth be told, most junketeers care more about celeb gossip than they do about movies but this is ridiculous: You can easily imagine a scene, modeled on real life, where Crystal writes quotes praising the unseen movie and asks the freebie hounds to sign up for them, and they eagerly line up to claim their blurbs so they can get to the open bar and the complimentary buffet.

Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta-Jones play sisters Kiki and Gwen. Gwen is beautiful sleek Hollywood perfection. Kiki has always been 60 pounds overweight, her sister’s lapdog/gofer/masseuse/everything else. John Cusack is Eddie Thomas (Gwen’s co-star onscreen and off). But Gwen has been lured away by the oily charms of Hector (Azaria), a Latin lover with a lisp and too much jewelry, and Eddie has gone ballistic, attacking them with his motorcycle before being whisked off to a rehab center run by “wellness guide” Alan Arkin.

Later, Eddie and Gwen are directed by Hal Weidmann (Christopher Walken), a mad-dog auteur, in their latest epic. (To edit his film in peace, he bought the Unibomber’s cabin and had it erected in his back yard.) The studio head is beside himself: He has spent 86 million dollars and been given only twenty seconds of titles, along with a note from Hal: “We could also do these in blue.” These early scenes show promise. But then well, I think that years of read-my-lips filmmaking have sucked the quick intelligence out of Hollywood screwball comedy.

It’s apparent that Kiki the wallflower has slimmed down into a beauty; that Gwen is a tiresome egomaniac; that Hector is toast; that Eddie must realize that Kiki, not Gwen, is the sister he has always loved. But there’s too much earnestness and not enough rapid fire cynicism in the romantic scenes; the movie forgets it’s a comedy at times and goes for conviction and insight when it should be running in the opposite direction.

The movie moves from a bright beginning and an O.K. middle to a disastrous closing act, when Hal helicopters in with the long-awaited print of his masterpiece. The scenes showing this movie’s premiere don’t work for several reasons among them their lack of any proper comeuppance for Gwen. Think about the unmasking and humiliation of Jean Hagen’s character in “Singin’ in the Rain” now think about this screening.

Part of the trouble lies with the movie within a movie itself the masterpiece Hal unveils. We get what he’s trying to do with it, but “America’s Sweethearts” never lets him do it. There aren’t any scenes like those within Hal’s movie itself ones that pay off on their own terms but also skewer the stars sitting in the audience. We want revenge and pay-off time, and we get a muddled sequence that eventually degenerates into a routine series of shots tying up the loose ends.

It isn’t the actors’ fault (though you might say it’s Azaria’s problem: this wonderful actor just doesn’t seem plausible as either a movie star or a lover). Julia Roberts is sweet and lovable, Catherine Zeta-Jones is chilly and manipulative, John Cusack is desperately heartsick, and Billy Crystal is surprise! good at playing a wise guy publicist.

But Crystal (who wrote the script with Peter Tolan) has all kinds of things going on here and director Joe Roth should have stopped him. Isolated scenes work but don’t add up. Godard said the way to criticize a movie was to make another movie; even while you’re watching “America’s Sweethearts,” it gets shouldered aside by “Singin’ in the Rain.”

Watch America’s Sweethearts For Free On Gomovies.