director
Roger Kumble
screenwriter
Nancy M. Pimental
producer
Cathy Konrad
cinematographer
Anthony B. Richmond
music
Ed Shearmur
editors
Wendy Greene Bricmont
David Rennie
cast
Cameron Diaz (Christina Walters)
Christina Applegate (Courtney Jameson)
Selma Blair (Jane Burns)
Thomas Jane (Peter Donahue)
Jason Bateman (Roger Donahue)
Parker Posey (Judy Webb)
Lillian Adams (Aunt Frida)
Johnathon Schaech (Leather Coat Guy)
James Mangold (Dr. Greg)
mpaa rating: R or unrated
running
time: 84m or 90m
u.s.
release: April 12,
2002
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official website
q&a home
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Carefree commitmentphobe Cameron
Diaz stumbles across Mr. Right.
This pretty
much got used as a toilet when it came out, didn't it?
Yeah. I don't know why. It's
not great or inspired by any means, but it's cute and amusing
enough. I think it suffered from critics' general weariness of
gross-out humor, and The Sweetest Thing has its share.
Such as?
Well -- in the unrated version,
anyway (I can't speak for what was shown in the R-rated theatrical
cut, not having seen it) -- there's the glory-hole scene, the
maggot-ridden-leftovers scene, the pierced-penis-meets-tonsils
scene, incessant frank girl talk about sex, and the one segment
I know wasn't in the theatrical version, "The Penis
Song."
The what?
Diaz, Christina Applegate,
and Selma Blair lead a restaurant full of diners in an exuberant
song-and-dance number set to the beat of Right Said Fred's "I'm
Too Sexy" ("You're too big to fit in here, too
big to fit in here," etc.). The idea of it
is funny. It goes on a bit past the point it makes, though.
Christina
Applegate and Jason Bateman are in this?
Yeah. I didn't even recognize
Bateman under his beard, but he's pretty damn funny as the shameless
brother of Diaz' love interest Thomas Jane. Applegate has only
improved with age -- physically and comedically -- and she throws
herself wholeheartedly into the role of Diaz' best friend and
roomie. Neglect not Selma Blair, who proves in this film and
Storytelling
that there's very little she won't do on the grounds that
it might be bad for her image. I mean, any actress who's willing
to sing the Aerosmith ballad from Armageddon
with an off-camera cock in her mouth...
Did you
laugh?
Now and again. Much of it is
simply too farcical to be credible in the real-world context
the movie sets up, and screenwriter (and South Park veteran)
Nancy M. Pimental, apparently eager to prove that girls can write
just as raunchy as boys, borrows a bit too much from the Farrelly
brand of comic-nightmare public humiliation (most of which involves
poor Selma Blair). But the leads are fun to spend 90 minutes
with, the dialogue is sometimes sharp, and the movie in general
takes its cue from Cameron Diaz' freewheeling ass-jiggle down
the street right at the start. Plus, any comedy that makes room
for a bit by Parker Posey as a bride who insists "I'm beautiful!
I'm beautiful!" has its heart in the right place.
Did the
movie remind you of anything?
Well, the sight of blond, bubbly
Diaz surrounding herself with two best buds -- one brunette,
one dark-haired -- certainly recalls the dynamic of Charlie's
Angels (though this film did not repeat the earlier blockbuster's
box-office, suggesting that Diaz still has yet to be an asses-in-seats
star all by herself). And when the ladies gab about sex the movie
plays a bit like a cruder version of Sex and the City
(the city here being San Francisco).
Any last
thoughts?
Yeah, if you're gonna rent
it, hold out for the unrated disc. It's the gaudy red box, as
shown above left. If you're gonna go with it, go all the way.
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