Themes: Love Triangles, Fish Out of Water, Actor's Life
Main Cast: Alan Alda, Michael Caine, Michelle Pfeiffer, Bob Hoskins, Lise Hilboldt
Release Year: 1986
Country: US
Run Time: 107 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Alan Alda wrote, directed, and starred in this satirical film about the corruption of the film industry's approach to history. Alda plays Michael Burgess, a college professor who has written a historical novel about the American Revolution. The book has been turned into a script, and a Hollywood film crew descends on his North Carolina hometown to make the movie. Predictably, the director and actors make a mess of his concept, and Burgess becomes frustrated as the town is turned upside down. Desperately, he tries to salvage his concept with some last-minute script changes. To make things more complicated, Burgess falls in love with the glamorous female lead in the film, Faith Healy (Michelle Pfeiffer). Meanwhile, his long-time girlfriend, Gretchen (Lise Hilboldt) is pressuring him to get married. The film's male star, Elliott James (Michael Caine), finally shows up in town and becomes Burgess's rival for Faith's affections. Silent film star Lillian Gish appears as Burgess's smother. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
Review
An argument can be safely made that the feature films of Alan Alda are essentially Woody Allen-lite. Perhaps that's why "the Woodman" cast him in a few of his mid-'90s features. Without a doubt, Alda strives valiantly for the sort of comic introspection that is Allen's stock in trade, but in a few of his most memorable films as writer and director, he achieves his goal admirably, and this romantic comedy is definitely a case in point. Transposing his idol's big city angst to a small New England town, Alda finds plenty of purchase by injecting a battalion of Hollywood filmmakers into the proceedings, presaging David Mamet's State and Main (2000) by a decade and a half. Luminous Michelle Pfeiffer and reliable comic foils Michael Caine and Bob Hoskins are on hand, as well as the penultimate performance by screen legend Lillian Gish. But it's Alda's underrated script -- lacerating Hollywood egos -- that deserves most of the credit here. While he took home Emmys as a writer, producer, and star of the TV series M*A*S*H, Alda gets little respect as a feature film scribe, which is a shame because this film, like his previous Four Seasons (1981), is a comic gem. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
Lillian Gish - Cecelia Burgess; Saul Rubinek - Bo Hodges; Lois Chiles - Leslie; Diane Agostini - Nurse; Anthony Alda - Film Crew Member; Alvin Alexis - Male Student; Christopher Bregman - Running Boy; Leo Burmeister - Hank; Cynthia Burr - Asst. Camera; Timothy Carhart - Eagleton; Michael Flanagan - Frank Stirling; Dann Florek - Jesse; Christopher Loomis - Cinematographer; Kevin McClarnon - FX Man; John C. McGinley - Floyd; Polly Rowles - Mrs. Delvechio; Fred Sanders - Soundman; Robert Schenkkan - Pilot; Lynne Thigpen - Claire; Linda Thorson - Grace; Frank Ferrara - Lopert; Richard Whiting - Johnny Delvechio; Bonnie Deroski - Female Student; David Gideon - Camera Operator; Katherine Gowan - TV Interviewer; Terry Hinz - FX Man; John Leonidas - Teamster; William Parry - Teamster; Larry Shue - Edson; Steven Stahl - Hotel Clerk; Robert Zarem - Publicist; Bryan Clark - Governor Swayze
Credit
Christopher Nowak - Art Director, Michael Economou - Associate Producer, Judith Stevens - Associate Producer, Mary Colquhoun - Casting, Jane Greenwood - Costume Designer, Alan Alda - Director, Michael Economou - Editor, Louis A. Stroller - Executive Producer, Bruce Broughton - Composer (Music Score), Howie Rice - Songwriter, Allan Rich - Songwriter, Irving Buchman - Makeup, Fern Buchner - Makeup, Ben Edwards - Production Designer, Frank Tidy - Cinematographer, Martin Bregman - Producer, John Alan Hicks - Set Designer, Candy Flanagin - Special Effects, Joe Cirillo - Stunts, Erik Cord - Stunts, Ted Grossman - Stunts, Henry Kingi - Stunts, Steve Picerni - Stunts, George Marshall Ruge - Stunts, Jeff Jensen - Stunts, Phil Nelson - Stunts, Victor Paul - Stunts, Chuck Picerni, Jr. - Stunts, Sandy Richman - Stunts, Webster Whinery - Stunts, Phil Adams - Stunts, Tracy Kennedy - Stunts, Lisa Loving - Stunts, Kenny Bates - Stunts, George Fisher - Stunts, Alan Alda - Screenwriter, Gore Vidal - Screenwriter
College history professor Michael Burgess sees his fact-based historical novel about the The Revolution bought by Hollywood and turned into a steamy tale of lust and betrayal with two huge stars, the egotistical lothario Elliott James and the seemingly sweet Method actress Faith Healy.
As the film crew comes to town to shoot on location, Michael becomes increasingly exasperated as his novel gets mauled beyond all recognition by a low-brow scriptwriter and a condescending director. They want a Hollywood version of history, complete with violence, nudity and a total distortion of the truth.
While both stars argue for more screen time, Michael must also deal with his ancient mother Cecelia and his girlfriend Gretchen. He has been trying to persuade Gretchen to live together, but cheats behind her back when he falls for Faith, finding her to be so much like the character she is portraying in the film.
Gretchen turns the tables on him, becoming receptive to the advances of Elliott James. The actor is a swordsman in many ways, not only flirting with Gretchen and the Mayor's wife but humiliating Michael repeatedly in bouts of fencing.
Faith turns out to not be what she seems to be, merely behaving the way she does to get into character.
Michael is fed up. He recruits others from the community and ends up sabotaging his own film, destroying sets, ruining scenes and mooning the director.
By the time the film's premiere is held in town, everything is pretty much back to normal for Michael, who comes to the theater with a pregnant Gretchen.
Sweet Liberty has a rating of 75% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 12 critics' reviews.[1]
The general consensus of critics was that the film lacked the satirical bite that might have been expected from a story about the Hollywood movie industry. Vincent Canby in the New York Times called it a "mildly satiric comedy so toothless it wouldn't even offend a mogul as sensitive and publicly pious as Louis B. Mayer," and sympathised with the actors as "severely limited by material that doesn't go anywhere."[2]
Time Out described the film as "nearly as dull as it sounds, intermittently enlivened only by Hoskins and Caine, the latter effortlessly amusing as the production's leading man."[3]Variety wrote that "comedic potential is too rarely realized."[4]Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times thought the film tried to "juggle a lot of characters all at once" and lamented that there was "more material than there was time to deal with it."[5]
The majority of critical praise was reserved for the lead actors. Michael Caine was described variously as an "excellent comic actor,"[5] "the kind of charming cad you can never really hate for too long,"[6] and "such an accomplished actor that all he has to do is behave with self-assured grace."[2] Michelle Pfeiffer was also highly-acclaimed for her dual role of "wonderfully subtle touches,"[5] described as getting "a chance to show that she has the potential to be a first-rate comedienne,"[2] and as the actress who "neatly tucks the movie into her bodice and saunters off with it."[6]
