SOAPDISH
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1991 Frank Maloney
SOAPDISH is a film starring Sally Fields, Kevin Kline, Robert Downey, Jr., Cathy Moriarty, and Whoopi Goldberg. Elizabeth Shue also has a major role, but doesn't get mentioned in the display ads.
SOAPDISH is a very funny movie, a farce that understands perfectly the weirdness of the soap opera, the "continuing daytime drama" as the TV guys like to put it, and understands equally well that people like their soaps. It exploits this weirdness until I was howling, yet never makes itself superior to the genre. It satirizes without patronizing and it works wonderfully well. There is hardly a mean bubble in this soap.
Sally Fields is not my favorite actor. The last time I liked her ditzy energy was in that movie about stand-up comics, the one that everyone else in world loathed and abominated apparently. SOAPDISH makes me a fan; she is perfect as the aging queen of the soaps, "America's sweetheart," whose professional and personal lives are coming apart. Her live-in boyfriend goes back to his wife; her producer and one of her co-stars (Cathy Moriarty) are plotting to push her out of her long-running soap. A demon (Kevin Kline) from the past shows up in both her worlds unwelcome and unbidden. Her misery is perfect, comically exaggerated and intense, agonizingly funny, just as her vulnerability and desperation make her human and appealing. We laugh ourselves silly at her expense, but we never dislike her. This seems to be exactly what is missing from most Hollywood comedies these days; does anyone *like* John Candy, par exemple?
Kevin Kline can do no wrong, as far as I'm concerned. He's not so driven here as he was in A FISH CALLED WANDA, but instead he's a lot more human. When we first meet him, in a geriatric dinner theater in Florida, playing Willy Loman, we know that he can relate to his role. He is an excellent foil to Fields' craziness, more in control but just as desperate, just as determined to win through, and just as funny.
Robert Downey, Jr., and Cathy Moriarty are the conspirators, the heavies, he driven by his lust for Montana (Moriarty), she driven by her need to be the queen of the soaps. Downey is really quite wonderful here, his timing, delivery giving his part a kind of snappy hilarity that makes him appealing and adorable in a sleazy way. Moriarty is strange; about her I can't say too much without talking about plot, something I try to avoid in these notices. Leave us say merely that she makes a major contribution to the hilarity.
Whoopi Goldberg is Fields's head writer and only friend. She looks wonderful in her slightly wacky outfits. She is the only straight-thinking, honorable person is the soapy world of ratings and rivalries. She has her funny moments, but her major role is that of second banana to Fields, something Goldberg carries off with surprising skill considering her own enormous comedic skills.
Elizabeth Shue plays the newcomer who throws everyone's lives and plots into the trashcan. This role has to be a boost in her somewhat floundering career; after all, I don't think she's carried a movie since ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING, in which she sang the memorable "Babysitter's Blues." She looks good, she acts well, she's a more than competent comedienne. Since I'm expecting SOAPDISH to be a major money machine, I think Shue's name will in all likelihood be moving up above the title one of these days soon.
This is a very funny movie that achieves its high level of hilarity through a combination of sight gags, sexual humor, farce, satire, and a respect for the audience that is extremely rare and successful.
I can recommend SOAPDISH even at full prices.
-- Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney .
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