'America's Sweethearts' is cultural terrorism

Earlier this week, I went to see "America's Sweethearts" -- an offensively banal Julia Roberts vehicle -- so you wouldn't have to! But in case you don't appreciate my sacrifice, and plan on seeing it anyway (and, to be fair, it's always better to form your own opinions), please at least accept a few tools for understanding why this film is the slipshod, vacuous crowd-drawer that it is.\nThe film starts after the separation of America's favorite two film stars, Eddie Thompson (John Cusack) and Gwen Harrison (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who had worked together in numerous box office hits and earned star status as a married team. Things were fine for the two of them until Gwen began sleeping with Hector (Hank Azaria), at which point Eddie became psychotic and tried to kill them both.\nBut the story isn't necessarily about exploring these characters and their problems -- it frequently reverts to a half-hearted parody of the dirty work involved in film production, namely the alternate coddling and manipulating performed by publicists and producers for the benefit of their egomaniacal stars and the financial success of their movies. Ironically enough, the parody of the film-industry can only be half-hearted because this film is such a finely honed product and example of that famously American dream factory, Hollywood cinema. But the very best part, the part the film was designed to showcase, is Julia Roberts, who plays Gwen's formerly fat (!) but still frumpy (we know she's frumpy because she wears glasses) sister and tireless assistant Kiki who has been quietly pining after Eddie since before the split. \nIt's clear from the beginning that Kiki is the overlooked gem here, and we can happily leave it to the contrived storyline to put her where she belongs by the film's end.\nBut is this satisfying? Here is a movie where the writers obviously thought, "all we have to do is have a famous nice girl and a famous nice guy, some money to pay them with, and the story will write itself!" But it doesn't work here -- the clichés and stale types proliferate, and we get no sense of these characters as authentically represented personalities. Besides the trio of Gwen, Eddie, and Kiki, there is the noisy use that is made of Christopher Walken, Stanley Tucci, and Hank Azaria in falsely colorful roles. \nClearly stated, the problem of this film is that it was built to make money and not promote thought on the part of its audiences. Directed by Joe Roth, who has worked mostly as a producer (i.e., his interests are perhaps more economic than artistic -- to be fair, he did also direct "Revenge of the Nerds II"), "America's Sweethearts" is a clunker because it doesn't take responsibility for telling a story; instead it resorts to high ornamentation in the hope that we'll forget to search for a plot in the blinding radiance of Julia's smile.