Movie Review: The Sweetest Thing (2002)

A raunchy romantic comedy, The Sweetest Thing follows the misadventures of three party girls as they start to consider growing up.

Christina, Courtney and Jane (Cameron Diaz, Christina Applegate and Selma Blair) are best friends in their late twenties, sharing an apartment in San Francisco and still enjoying a chaotic life of partying and casual relationships. At a dance club Christina makes a connection with the dishy Peter (Thomas Jane) and also meets his more obnoxious brother Roger (Jason Bateman).

For a few days Christina is unsure whether she should pursue a relationship, but then Courtney insists they drive for three hours to a small town where the brothers are attending a wedding. They meet the uncertain bride Judy (Parker Posey), then a shock awaits.

Offering just the skimpiest of plots, The Sweetest Thing follows in the footsteps of 1998's There's Something About Mary as a lusty sex comedy searching for big laughs wherever bodily fluids and toilets are found. The humour, when it works, is often cringey and hilarious at the same time. Here the three protagonists are all women relishing the girls-just-wanna-have-fun stage, but at 28 years old, BFFs Christina and Courtney are starting to wonder if maybe it's time to settle down.

With all the sexual and romantic fantasies and mishaps presented from the women's perspective, South Park writer Nancy Pimental's script unapologetically celebrates the wild single life. From performing The Penis Song musical number in a Chinese restaurant to cleaning the stain on a dress and venturing to an encounter with a glory hole at a dingy gas station restroom, the three women are enjoying the sexual ups and down of their twenties, owning their experiences, creating memories, and dealing with all the good and bad consequences.

Unfortunately the humour's success rate is less than average, and for every excellent comic scene at least a couple fall flat. With a sparse, essentially plot-free structure, director Roger Kumble has to stretch out several sequences well past the funny point just to arrive at the 90 minute mark (the original theatrical release version is even shorter, but excludes The Penis Song, so it's all about trade-offs). The romantic elements centred on Christina's possible pursuit of Peter are a secondary, almost slapped-on, part of the film.

The three actresses ham it up, Cameron Diaz maybe too aware she is the star attraction and frequently creeping into frantic territory. Christina Applegate and Selma Blair are more understated and mischievously memorable. The three actresses do succeed in creating a sense of genuine close camaraderie and appear to be having a blast on the screen.

The Sweetest Thing is sometimes sweet, but more often sticky and yucky.



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Movie Review: Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy (2004)

A satire of television newsrooms in a male-dominated era, Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy features more comic misses than hits and falls victim to the culture it attempts to skewer.

It's the 1970s in San Diego, and Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) is the leading news anchorman in town. Unintelligent but possessing self-proclaimed excellent hair and therefore full of himself, he leads an entourage consisting of sportscaster "Champ" (David Koechner), field reporter Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) and imbecilic weatherman Brick Tamland (Steve Carell).

Their reign of toxic masculinity using the workplace as hunting grounds for women is threatened when station manager Ed (Fred Willard) hires ambitious news reporter Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) in the name of improving diversity. Ron and his buddies immediately make gauche moves to seduce and belittle Veronica intending to stop her career before it starts, but she proves a tough opponent.

Featuring plenty of improvisation and no shortage of vulgarity, Anchorman showers the screen with coarse humour. With a cast also including Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Seth Rogen in minor roles, the talent surplus is not matched by sharp wit. The comedy is often at the throw-the-dog-off-the-bridge slapstick level, compounded by plenty of outright yelling and wailing.

The ultra male shenanigans step well over the stupid border, and while a few moments of humour survive and a couple of lines land, the film remains mired in a clueless celebration of body parts and imbecility.

The counterbalance is provided by Christina Applegate's steady role as Veronica Corningstone, and she emerges as the best thing in the movie, working hard for future generations to truncate the man in Anchorman. The film is not smart enough and too invested in Burgundy to properly leverage Corningstone's strengths, but expanding her perspective would have dramatically enhanced the otherwise flimsy narrative.

The more positive notes include a delightful non-sequitur gang rumble scene and Steve Carell's deadpan interventions. Director Adam McKay does create a wonderfully ridiculous visual feast awash in loud 1970s clothes, absurd hair and the decade's sickly colours (brown and orange everywhere), although a lack of ambition prevents a meaningful extension of the aesthetic to the outdoors.

A mostly tedious exercise in attempted hilarity, Anchorman is too smug and self-satisfied with guys believing the legend in the mirror.

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