Cleverly turned out to appeal to soap fans, or the theater-queen style of soap fan who goes nuts for th the wacky characters and ridiculous plot turns, Soapdish fails to find any kind of a comedic or dramatic baseline, but is a great parody. Naturally the cast and crew of The Sun also Rises are a company of nitwits who'll turn the plot and logic inside out for ratings, and doublecross their own mothers to improve their parts. The aggressive Montana strings David along with promises of sex; David plays psychological games to manipulate his stars; and the casting director auditions potential sex partners privately in her office, to see if they can play buff and tanned 'homeless people.'

The picture has a very interesting cast that goes for broke and often finds a funny vein here and there, but there's just not enough reason to like these people (even farcical characters have to be loveable) and too much of the comedy borders on desperation. That said, nothing is totally witless, and the whole affair is in good taste, which is more than can be said for the mainstream comedies we're suffering through now.

Sally Field and Kevin Kline are excellent as the ex-lovers thrown together, creating ego-fireworks in the process. She's impossibly selfcentered and vain, and he's vain and pompous, and they almost give us a reason to love them ... it's that desperation factor that gets in the way. Kline's acting MO is to play straight man, so he seems to be ducking the moments. Field gives every comedy confrontation her all, and comes off as a bit too much, grimacing like Paul Lynde and popping from one emotional extreme to another like a yo-yo. They're very good, but not a good match.

The same with the rest of the cast, all of whom find good individual grooves, but don't create comedy relationships we remember. In his better days, Robert Downey Jr. is quiet and conniving - but has a manic side. Whoopi Goldberg actually achieves some character integrity as the writer - but she has a manic side too. Cathy Moriarty, a great unused actress, is ONLY a manic side and comes off as abrasive and ugly. She ends up the butt of a cruel joke that the story didn't need. It's hard to be told to love our comedy leads when the comedy villains are so abused by the script. Elisabeth Shue is lively but is constrained by the plot, as is her homeless, mute, stabbing-attacker character Angelique in the show.

Paramount's DVD of Soapdish is a nice widescreen 16:9 image that spreads out the fun, and brightens up the colors, that clogged up pretty terribly on VHS. The bouncy score is also happier on DVD. A welcome extra for the fans of this picture (there are a lot of them) is a jokey original featurette. Hysterical, manic and consistently over-the-top, Soapdish is a good comedy on DVD.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor,
Soapdish rates:
Movie: Good
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: none
Packaging: Amaray case
Reviewed: December 9, 2001