DOC HOLLYWOOD
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: A good director turns out his most commercial but least interesting film. Michael Caton-Jones, the director of SCANDAL and MEMPHIS BELLE, tells the story of a big city doctor stranded in a small town in South Carolina who finds himself bewitched by the locals. Pleasant but predictable. Rating: 1 (-4 to +4).
This whole film is something of a riddle and the riddle is what is Michael Caton-Jones doing directing a film like this? First, Caton-Jones is British and DOC HOLLYWOOD is about small-town life in South Carolina. That cannot be a subject about which Caton-Jones is particularly expert. Probably the closest Caton-Jones has ever been to the American South is watching reruns of "The Andy Griffith Show." That television show's Mayberry has more than a passing resemblance to Grady, South Carolina. But Caton-Jones worked on ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS in a minor but formative capacity. He went on to direct SCANDAL and MEMPHIS BELLE. Each of these films was set a generation or so back. Each had notable actors but no big stars. Each of these films took something of a risk presenting what could have been an unpopular viewpoint. (An interesting piece of trivia: Mandy Rice-Davies played in ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS, Bridget Fonda played in DOC HOLLYWOOD, and in SCANDAL Bridget Fonda played Mandy Rice-Davies.)
The story of DOC HOLLYWOOD is far from original: big-city boy meets and falls in love with a small-town of interesting and eccentric characters. I have seen that plot attributed to Frank Capra, though I myself cannot think of a single Capra film with a plot that seems to me all that similar to DOC HOLLYWOOD. I will, however, point out that this film has a strong similarity to Bill Forsythe's LOCAL HERO. I would claim that LOCAL HERO is by far the better film, but if I were from Scotland I might well prefer a film to show me exotic South Carolina. The title is a nickname for Dr. Benjamin Stone (played by Michael J. Fox), who is headed for a lucrative cosmetic surgery practice in Beverly Hills when an accident and the damage it causes forces him to spend some time in Grady, South Carolina. You can probably figure the plot from there. Boy meets town. Boy hates town. Audience loves town. Boy meets girl. Girl hates boy. Audience loves girl. Boy loves girl. Girl starts to like boy. Boy starts to like town. Boy, girl, and town live happily ever after. Together. Audience leaves happy.
I can be as silly as the next guy and I liked the town and laughed at the jokes. The town is likable. The town is lovable. What's not to love about a town where blacks and whites, men and women, city folk and rednecks all sashay together in perfect harmony, where never is heard a bigoted word and nobody looks twice at gays. This Southern town is the Ku Klux Klan's worst nightmare come to life. And the plot doesn't bear much thought either. One of the characters pays a minor podiatry bill with a pig whose value is probably ten times the size of his debt. He could easily have sold the pig, paid his bill, and had a big piece of change in his pocket.
Then there is the incredible stretching Michael J. Fox. He has a lot of scenes together with female lead Julie Warner. Somehow when you see full-length shots of the two of them she is perhaps an inch taller than he is. In every close-up she has to reach up to a Michael J. Fox who has a good two or three inches on her. This film is willing to find endearing all sorts of eccentricities which Grady, South Carolina, accepts without batting an eye, but would rather create a distraction than break the taboo that the boy has got to be taller than the girl. The film has people joke about how short Dr. Stone is, but of course he finds a soulmate who is even shorter.
DOC HOLLYWOOD is entertaining and pleasant but the audience gets none of the value of seeing itself through someone else's eyes that they would get from a Louis Malle film such as ATLANTIC CITY. I rate it a flat +1 on to -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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