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BIG BUSINESS
Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin, two of the funniest women in the movies, work very hard at making the 1988 comedy Big Business viable entertainment, but an overly complex story and some fuzzy writing bog down the proceedings and only provide sporadic laughs.
The film opens in the 1940's in a backwoods community called Jupiter Hollow, where a wealthy couple named the Sheltons, who are just passing through, give birth to twin daughters who they decide to name Sadie and Rose. On the same day, a local couple named the Ratliffs, also give birth to twin daughters, who they also name Sadie and Rose. Unfortunately, the dotty nurse in the delivery room gets confused and puts the babies in the wrong cribs.
Flash forward to present day Manhattan where Sadie and Rose Shelton are now co-CEO's of a large corporation called Moramax, who are preparing to negotiate the purchase of a small company called Hollowmade, which is located in a town called Jupiter Hollow and guess which twin sisters have been pegged to go to Manhattan to try and stop Moramax from buying the little company that employs half the town?
This is one of those projects that probably looked really great on paper but definitely lost something in its translation to the screen. The screenplay by Dori Pierson and Marc Rubel asks the viewer to swallow a lot and requires a scorecard to keep track of everything that is going on, despite the fact that both sets of twins end up checked into the Plaza Hotel in suites right next to each other. Then we get something akin to a Noel Coward drawing room comedy with characters from Dogpatch that keep barely missing each other in elevators and restaurants and we have to wait well into the final act for the two sets of twins to meet and though the moment where the two sets of twins finally meet is hysterically funny, it takes way too long to get there and a 90 minute movie feels twice that length.
Jim Abrahams, who directed Midler in Ruthless People puts a lot of detail in the staging of the story that keeps the twins apart for most of the running time, but all the near misses and misunderstandings leading to the rushed conclusion just come off as pat and contrived. Midler and Tomlin appear to be enjoying themselves though and they have a solid supporting cast including Fred Ward, Edward Herrmann, Barry Primus, Michael Gross, and Michele Placido, but it's a very exhausting cinematic journey that doesn't provide anywhere near the entertainment it should. For hardcore Midler and Tomlin fans only.
Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin, two of the funniest women in the movies, work very hard at making the 1988 comedy Big Business viable entertainment, but an overly complex story and some fuzzy writing bog down the proceedings and only provide sporadic laughs.
The film opens in the 1940's in a backwoods community called Jupiter Hollow, where a wealthy couple named the Sheltons, who are just passing through, give birth to twin daughters who they decide to name Sadie and Rose. On the same day, a local couple named the Ratliffs, also give birth to twin daughters, who they also name Sadie and Rose. Unfortunately, the dotty nurse in the delivery room gets confused and puts the babies in the wrong cribs.
Flash forward to present day Manhattan where Sadie and Rose Shelton are now co-CEO's of a large corporation called Moramax, who are preparing to negotiate the purchase of a small company called Hollowmade, which is located in a town called Jupiter Hollow and guess which twin sisters have been pegged to go to Manhattan to try and stop Moramax from buying the little company that employs half the town?
This is one of those projects that probably looked really great on paper but definitely lost something in its translation to the screen. The screenplay by Dori Pierson and Marc Rubel asks the viewer to swallow a lot and requires a scorecard to keep track of everything that is going on, despite the fact that both sets of twins end up checked into the Plaza Hotel in suites right next to each other. Then we get something akin to a Noel Coward drawing room comedy with characters from Dogpatch that keep barely missing each other in elevators and restaurants and we have to wait well into the final act for the two sets of twins to meet and though the moment where the two sets of twins finally meet is hysterically funny, it takes way too long to get there and a 90 minute movie feels twice that length.
Jim Abrahams, who directed Midler in Ruthless People puts a lot of detail in the staging of the story that keeps the twins apart for most of the running time, but all the near misses and misunderstandings leading to the rushed conclusion just come off as pat and contrived. Midler and Tomlin appear to be enjoying themselves though and they have a solid supporting cast including Fred Ward, Edward Herrmann, Barry Primus, Michael Gross, and Michele Placido, but it's a very exhausting cinematic journey that doesn't provide anywhere near the entertainment it should. For hardcore Midler and Tomlin fans only.