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It was inevitable that women would want to get in on the "fun" of the modern cinematic trend of "laughs via gag reflex". In movies like Tomcats, American Pie, Scary Movie and Van Wilder, most of the sperm-eating and fecal baths have been enjoyed by men. The Sweetest Thing represents a truly astonishing backhanded leap forward in 'gender equality'.


That The Sweetest Thing features three very charming actresses is more bad news than good, in that the trio repeatedly do everything under the sun to make themselves as disgusting as possible. The usually very lovable Cameron Diaz mugs and struts her way through a non-role as an infamous sex-fueled "player", while Christine Applegate and Selma Blair play her best gal pals, one slutty and the other...is also slutty. (But she is a brunette, while the other two are blonde.)

If this ungainly series of disconnected raunch gags actually contained the pretense of a plot, I suppose it would be this:

Blonde girl meets a boy she likes and drives upstate to see him at his brother's wedding.

If that synopsis seems like it could be written by someone who hasn't even seen the film, blame the wretched screenplay, not me. The ads label The Sweetest Thing as a road-comedy, although the traveling portion of the movie only covers 30 minutes at best. Acts 1 and 3 are comprised of nothing more than a hoary collection of labored sex gags, each one shocking in its depraved stupidity moreso than their actual humor.

-One of our classy young ladies gets "stuck" while orally pleasuring a guy, and this scene is such a blatant ripoff of the zipper gag in There's Something About Mary, I'd recommend a lawsuit.

-On their way to the wedding, Diaz and Applegate discover some maggot-infested leftovers on the floor of the car. They toss it out the window, it flies way overhead and somehow splatters onto their windshield. If I follow the rules of modern comedy accurately, that gag is funny because maggots are involved. On the way home, Diaz sticks her face in Applegate's crotch (while both are logically clad in nothing but underwear) and waggles her butt in the air. Hilarity ensues as a biker pulls up and assumes that oral sex is afoot. (Again, Diaz made 15 million dollars for this movie.)

-After being forced to squat over a filthy urinal, Applegate is tickled to death when Diaz discovers the hidden treasures of a rest stop "glory hole". I may know nothing about Hollywood, but I always figured that once you made over 15 million bucks a movie, you had a 'get out of jail free' card on all those "dick in the eye" jokes.

As a big fan of both Cameron Diaz (Charlie's Angels) and Christina Applegate (The Big Hit), I was more depressed by their efforts than anything. (Applegate earns the movie sole laugh when she offers a cute riff on Julia Roberts.) Personable actors like Thomas Jane (Deep Blue Sea) and Jason Bateman (Necessary Roughness) try hard to add some life to the proceedings, with very few positive results. Selma Blair (Legally Blonde) is saddled with a humiliating role, and the stellar Parker Posey (Dazed & Confused) is absolutely wasted in a role that could have been played by any stray extra.

I'm certainly not saying that women filmmakers and actors couldn't produce a damn funny sex comedy. With performers like Diaz, Applegate and Blair, this one certainly started out on the right foot. Unfortunately, the trio offer more charm and effort than this turgid screenplay deserves. (This collection of dick jokes masquerading as a script was written by former South Park scribe Nancy Pimental, and the fact that she got 2 million smackers for this slop is simply too horrifying to focus on.)

Director Roger Kumble (Cruel Intentions) does nobody any favors, setting the film with a stutter-stop pace and a thoroughly bland visual sense. What's most disturbing is that most criticisms of this painfully bad movie will probably be dismissed as simple "chick-flick bashing by men who have no clue". But I can't see how any intelligent woman could somehow consider this dreck a compliment to their gender.

If the best a reviewer can come up with is to point out four or five wretched gags and call that a review, odds are that the movie at hand is a flimsy non-film, a hastily contrived series of "shock" gags, musical montages and end-credit blooper sequences that reeks of a hasty production and some piss-poor editing. I expected this one to be nothing more than entertaining piffle and was stunned when I saw one of the worst movies of the year.

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originally posted: 04/28/02 04:05:44
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