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Be warned. This movie does not “star” Julia Roberts. The star of this film is, without a doubt (and luckily for the audience), Billy Crystal. Co-written by Crystal and Peter Tolan, “America’s Sweethearts” is the story of Gwen Harrison and Eddie Thomas, Hollywood’s golden couple both on and off screen, who have gone their separate ways both on and off screen, with disasterous results. Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Gwen, a manipulative, over-the-top, obnoxious, I-am-so-in-love-with-myself, egomaniacal movie star, to John Cusack’s Eddie, a slightly older version of his defining role, downtrodden Lloyd Dobbler in “Say Anything.” Julia Roberts is a delight as Gwen’s sister, Kiki, a lifelong overweight, doormat to Gwen. But it is Crystal as studio public relations ace Lee Phillips who makes this movie what it is.
Having broken up some 18 months ago when Gwen was swept off her feet by her Spanish lover, Hector (implausibly and excessively lispingly played by Hank Azaria who lacks any believability as a Spanish lover or movie star), Gwen and Eddie have gone their separate ways -- Eddie having a breakdown and spending his time at a wellness center run by Alan Arkin, and Gwen making film flops. With nine previous hits under their belts, their careers and the fate of an entire studio hinge on their tenth and final film, “Time Over Time” which is about to be released with Gwen and Eddie no longer together. Just fired by studio exec Dave Kingman, faultlessly and frenetically played by Stanley Tucci (do we hear Supporting Oscar nomination?), Lee is brought back into the fold to pull off the PR coup of the century - get Gwen and Eddie back together for the press junket on “Time Over Time”, an $86 million film which has still not been completed by three time Oscar winning director, Hal Weidmann, brilliantly played by Christopher Walken. Weidmann is such an eccentric that he has purchased the Unibomber’s cabin from the government, setting it in his backyard as his editing bay. Refusing to submit a film for screening until the junket, Weidmann has Kingman “by the balls” so to speak, thus forcing Lee to concoct a diversion from the actual screening - the recoupling on and off screen of Gwen and Eddie.
For Lee’s scheme to work he must enlist the aid of Kiki as she is the only one Gwen will even “pretend to listen to.” It quickly becomes apparent to Lee, however, that Kiki, now svelte and beautiful, is in love with her ex-brother-in-law, Eddie, and although he won’t admit it, Eddie with her. In the great tradition of romantic screwball comedies of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Lee embarks on an all out campaign to not only save the studio, but to make sure the right girl gets the right guy (a la “Singing In The Rain”).
Thanks to Hollywood itself for giving Crystal and Tolan some of the best scenarios to work with when dealing with the press and gossip fodder.
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