AMERICA’S SWEETHEARTS

Billy Crystal is certainly capable of writing a scathing film about celebrity — in fact, his last attempt to do so, Mr. Saturday Night, was so bleak it was unwatchable. America’s Sweethearts is much milder and sunnier, peppered with Crystal’s trademark Borscht Belt one-liners and directed in a glossy, personality-free style by former Disney studio chief Joe Roth, and marked by the not too earth-shattering revelation that everyone in the Hollywood food chain, from actors to management to entertainment reporters, is a professional liar, and a self-deluding one at that. You’ll chuckle, and then you’ll forget everything as the film evaporates in a soft cloud.

khe plot, which could have been lifted from French actress/director Josiane Balasko’s 1997 backstage farce Un grand cri d’amour, has Crystal as a desperate studio publicist who cajoles an estranged husband-and-wife acting team (John Cusack and Catherine Zeta-Jones) into reuniting long enough to promote their final film at a press junket. The combustible couple’s antics together, no matter how embarrassing, confirm the show-biz dictum that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. In fact, all the craziness from Crystal, Zeta-Jones, and Cusack could make you forget that the lead here is actually Julia Roberts. She’s the sole level-headed character in the movie, even though she’s Zeta-Jones’s sister and personal assistant and is carrying a torch for Cusack. She wrestles Crystal for control of the movie — it’s a romantic comedy! no, it’s a spoof of the movie business! — and almost wins it by the skin of her gleaming teeth, but Crystal grabs the last, unmemorable laugh.

— Gary Susma