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In Hot Pursuit of Mister Wrong
Date of Review: Sep 3, 2003
The Bottom Line: An above average sex comedy on par with Animal House and Sex and the City. Get the Unrated DVD version.
THE SWEETEST THING is an "adult" comedy .... which really means it's more of a sophomoric sex comedy. Just in time. THE SWEETEST THING may be this generation's ANIMAL HOUSE.
Some reviewers didn't care for this flick. I suppose they were hoping for something dignified and ennobling. How unrealistic. This is a comedy, more than that it's a sex comedy, and on par with the Farrelly Brothers' stuff. This was written by Nancy Pimental, who has written for South Park, and Sex and the City, and this movie sort of fits into the same comedic category. Applying the appropriate yardstick for that genre, THE SWEETEST THING measures up quite well.
The plot is not particularly demanding: Three 20-something girlfriends are planning a night out at the flashiest night club to meet men. There's dark brunette Jane (Selma Blair), tall brunette Christine (Cameron Diaz), and businesslike blonde Courtney (Christina Applegate). At the club Christine bumps, literally, into Peter (Thomas Jane), who seems a really nice guy ... the only detail she can get about him is that he's going to be at a wedding two days from now in a small town 200 miles away.
After mature reflection - and waking up with a hangover - Christine decides that Peter is for her, and she's going to crash that wedding because it's the only way she can get another chance to swap spit and addresses with Peter.
Even before this road trip takes off, there are hilarious complications. Jane must take her little black dress to the dry cleaner to get a conspicuous lewinsky stain removed. It turns out that the dry cleaner knows her parents well, and wants her to identify the stain for him; just as she's summoned up the courage to tell him, in comes her old grammar school teacher with a classful of third graders to see a dry cleaner at work, then comes her family's priest with his laundry .... I cannot even begin to describe another sexual problem encountered by Jane.
In the Unrated DVD - which I heartily recommend - a scene omitted from the theatrical release (and the cable TV showing) has been restored. In it, our three girls lead an entire restaurant in an oratorio about my favorite body part.
Christine and Courtney set out on a drive to crash this small town wedding. In the midst of things, they get soaked, they attract the attentions of a biker, they buy entirely new outfits at a dress shop run by Georgia Engel (it's been a long dry spell without her), and Christine winds up giving the terrified bride (Posey Parker) a pep talk. And we're only about halfway through.
Despite a lot of sex talk, sex jokes, sexual innuendo, etc., there is no female nudity in this movie. Let me say this again: You don't get to see any of the stars' fun parts. There are a couple of momentary glimpses of male nudity. Even so, you couldn't bring the kids to this movie, and probably not your parents either. Don't expect to see this one on network TV.
I thought this movie was enormously entertaining. It made no intellectual demands and it did not attempt to teach me anything (except, maybe, that there's a particular body modification which ought to be avoided). We already knew that Cameron Diaz could do a sexy comedy, and Christina Applegate earned her comedic bones as the bimbo daughter on Married With Children. But Selma Blair is a pleasant surprise as an understated Gracie Allen type. And it's a real treat to see Georgia Engel again after all these years. It's a pity that the plot does not lend itself to a sequel, but, frankly, these three could team up like Hope and Crosby or the Ritz Brothers, and do entirely different characters in more madcap comedies.
