America's Sweethearts (2001)

America's Sweethearts arrives from the summer of 2001 like a time capsule sealed before anyone thought to ask questions of it. Joe Roth directs a Billy Crystal and Peter Tolan script about a studio publicist (Crystal) tasked with convincing the press that two feuding movie stars are still in love, so that a junket can proceed and a film nobody has seen can be promoted. The machinery of celebrity manufacture is the subject. The jokes are about handlers, spin, and the willingness of journalists to accept a planted photograph. It is a film about the business of lying, told with real fondness for the business.

The picture's progressive credentials are modest and largely accidental. Julia Roberts plays Kiki, who spends the running time fetching for her sister and is eventually granted permission to stop, which is a self-actualization beat and not a thesis. The film remains committed to the question of which man each woman will end up beside. Hank Azaria's Hector, a swaggering Latin lover who dispatches a rival with a serving tray, drew criticism at the time and has aged into a cautionary exhibit. There is no racial commentary here, no environmental concern, no queer presence, no interest in bodies beyond the punchline. Eddie's breakdown and his New Age wellness retreat are comic furniture, not a study of anything.

A faint itch of conscience does surface. Lee grows uneasy about his own tactics and is immediately rewarded with his old job, which suggests the satire was always in the service of the institution. Nobody preaches. Nobody lectures. The closest thing to a message is the observation that authenticity sells better than fabrication, delivered by a director who has just secretly filmed his cast and become a hit for it. The audience applauds. Everyone gets what they want. It is a gentle, well-cast, mildly cynical entertainment, and its cultural awareness extends about as far as the valet parking at the premiere.