The Sweetest Thing on DVD

by Jim Bray

From the inspiration of films such as “There’s Something About Mary” comes this empty effort that’s mostly a paean to bathroom humor, the superficiality of today’s feminine gender (easy for this guy to say, eh?) and society in general, at least as it pertains to California.

Despite that, the movie and its protagonists yearn for old fashioned romance and the storyline is basically about the search for it in the abovementioned setting.

Cameron Diaz and Christina Applegate star, with Selma Blair, as three free spirited friends, successful in their own right but whose lives are superficial and empty. They're looking for love in all the wrong places (to coin a phrase). Jane (Blair) has just broken up with her boyfriend so Christina (Diaz) and Courtenay (Applegate) drag her out to a night club to dance her troubles away - or at least to find a willing accomplice for a night of sexual bouncing back.

But while Jane does meet a man that night (who’s gorgeous but stupid), it’s Christina who reluctantly gets swept off her feet thanks to a chance meeting with Peter (Thomas Jane), who’s in town for a bachelor party. Courtenay drags Christina onto a road trip to crash the weekend wedding for which the bachelor party was held, and thereby unleashes a series of misadventures that culminate with her fantasy of a relationship with Peter blowing up in her face.

Oh, all ends well, of course, but not before we’ve sat through 90 minutes of bodily functions, sexual positions, and some of the least subtle writing and filming we’ve seen in a while.

The Sweetest Thing has its moments, but while “There’s Something About Mary” had us laughing out loud several times, the most that emanated from us while watching this effort was the occasional chuckle. And while “Mary” had its share of grossout humor, it’s grossout humor that really propels The Sweetest Thing - despite its wish to be a movie about romance.

It’s too bad, because the actors are all well cast and perform very well. But instead of intelligence we’re given an extended, supposedly impromptu production number about how women react to men about their male organs, Christina Applegate wriggling to pee in a men’s urinal (why didn’t she just wait for the stall or use the sink? Oh, yeah, so we’d laugh at her wriggling to use the urinal) and cerebral stuff like that.

Okay, the movie doesn’t pretend to be cerebral, nor should it. But it pretends to be wildly funny and it never comes close to that.

Too bad, again, because there’s nothing wrong with the premise. But if it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the stage, and screenwriter Nancy M. Pimental chose to go unabashedly for the lowest common denominator.

She’ll undoubtedly have a bright future in Hollywood.

The DVD’s pretty good as a DVD, though. The anamorphic widescreen picture, 16x9 TV compatible, was digitally mastered in high definition, and it looks great. The colors are rich and bright and, though the film has a bit of a soft look (deliberately, undoubtedly), the video image is very sharp.

Audio is Dolby Digital 5.1 surround and it’s very good, with excellent tight bass on the musical sections and an open feel for the rest.

When you put the disc into a DVD ROM drive, you’re given a menu with the options of linking to the movie’s Web site or exiting back out of the disc. This is annoying because, rather than having your DVD software autoplay as it does with most DVD’s, you have to manually start the disc. Not a big deal, but bad interfacing nonetheless.

Extras include a “making of” feature that’s particularly self-and-peer-indulgent and “A Day in the Life of Nancy M. Pimental” a feature about the woman who inflicted the screenplay on an unsuspecting public. There’s also a director/cast commentary, storyboard to screen comparisons, filmographies, and trailers for a whole whack of movies.

The Sweetest Thing, from Columbia Tristar Home Video
90 min. anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1), 16x9 TV compatible, Dolby Digital 5.1 surround
Starring Cameron Diaz, Christina Applegate, Selma Blair
Produced by Cathy Konrad
Written by Nancy M. Pimental, Directed by Roger Kumble

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