Review: The Sweetest Thing

The Sweetest Thing is just downright asinine.

The Sweetest Thing

Meet Christina (Cameron Diaz). She’s the kind of girl who gets past the velvet rope ahead of all the hotter, more important people. Meet Christina’s best friend, Courtney (Christina Applegate). Courtney is the kind of girl who gets off on strangers feeling her breast implants. Christina and Courtney are the kind of girls who call each other on their cellphones when they’re only a block away (no, not the funny ha-ha Clueless kind, but the real-life kind who phone each other on the way home from work even though they live in the same apartment). Meet Christina and Courtney’s roommate, plain Jane (Selma Blair). Jane has a habit of getting into sticky situations and always has something in her mouth (ice cream, penises, etc.): “Hi, my name is Jane and I’m rubbing my vagina because I just had sex.” The girls affectionately call each other “pussy” and are referred to as “bitches” so often you’d think screenwriter Nancy Pimental had a penis herself. Jane snags the hottie while Christina and Courtney end up with Mediocre and Ugly, respectively. Hence, The Sweetest Thing is the Everyman’s dream movie. Christina’s the type of girl who believes that the route to Mr. Right is through multiple Mr. Right Nows, yet she travels more than three hours to find the guy she thinks is the man of her dreams. One part There’s Something About Mary and one part The Wedding Singer, the film is nothing more than a toilet-humored road-trip. Christina and Courtney’s antics are straight out of “Three’s Company,” only Chrissy is not as dumb and Janet is a whore. (Are we really supposed to believe that Christina is so stupid that she would follow bathroom graffiti of a yellow-brick road to a painting of a puppy dog with a glory hole for a mouth, only to then coo at the pup until a dick pokes her in the eye?) Aside from a few quirky moments (an absurd dream sequence and a movie star montage in a dress shop owned by a sequined woman named Sheila), The Sweetest Thing is just downright asinine. A seemingly cynical twist-ending almost redeems the film but, alas, there’s a double-twist. Aye Jane, there’s the rub.

Score: 
 Cast: Cameron Diaz, Christina Applegate, Thomas Jane, Selma Blaire, Parker Posey, Jason Bateman, Damon Williams  Director: Roger Kumble  Screenwriter: Nancy Pimental  Distributor: Columbia Pictures  Running Time: 84 min  Rating: R  Year: 2002  Buy: Video

Sal Cinquemani

Sal Cinquemani is the co-founder and co-editor of Slant Magazine. His writing has appeared in Rolling Stone, Billboard, The Village Voice, and others. He is also an award-winning screenwriter/director and festival programmer.

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