| Steven Phillips’
career is at a crossroads. Although the script
writer for seventeen films (including 1993 Oscar
nominee McCormack Place) has just won a
humanitarian award, he has been told that he has
"lost his edge" by his friend, his
agent and his studio – the latter strongly
suggesting that he be off Paramount property by
5:00. So Steven does what every other married,
white, forty-something male does when they have a
mid-life crisis…well, actually he
doesn’t. Most guys would probably have an
affair with some high-school-age bimbo, get
caught and lose half of their crap. Instead, Steven
(Albert Brooks, Mother) turns to friend
and fellow Hollywood screenwriter Jack Warrick
(Jeff Bridges, Arlington Road), who
reluctantly admits that his recent success has
been due to working with a muse. For those of you
that don’t remember your Greek mythology,
Zeus had nine daughters that were responsible for
all creativity. Jack’s muse, Sarah (Sharon
Stone, The Mighty), a direct descendant of
the original nine, has also worked wonders for
other Tinseltown dignitaries (male and female)
and many make cameos in this film - James
Cameron, Lorenzo Lamas, Wolfgang Puck, Rob
Reiner, Martin Scorsese and Jennifer Tilly, among
others.
Jumping
at the chance to revitalize his sagging
professional life, Steven is thrilled when Sarah
tells him that she can begin working with him
immediately. Mind you, she doesn’t actually
write for him or even offer suggestions, but will
supposedly make Steven more creative by simply
being near him. Sarah also insists on having a
suite at the Four Seasons (on a high floor), a
limousine, and a fridge stocked with expensive
health foods.
Initially
trying to hide Sarah from his wife Laura (Andie
MacDowell, Just the Ticket), Steven
eventually comes clean and tells his spouse about
the muse. Any other woman might be suspicious of
their husband spending so much time with another
lady, but Laura believes her husband’s
honest intentions after witnessing Sarah make
Steven fetch her a Waldorf salad and bobby pins
in the middle of the night.
Not
happy with her posh surroundings at the Four
Seasons, Sarah firmly requests that she move into
the Phillips’ Pacific Palisades home, where
she works Steven’s last nerve and motivates
Laura to pursue a career in cookie-making. Oh,
yeah – she also helps Steven come up with a
great screenplay that he tries to sell to Steven
Spielberg. Instead, in a very funny scene, he
ends up taking a meeting with Stan Spielberg
(comedian Steven Wright), a cousin of the Oscar
winner.
The
Muse is a comical success, with Brooks’
dry delivery as potent as ever (he also directed
and co-wrote the film with the Oscar-nominated Mother
scribe Monica Johnson). My only complaints are
that Steven believes in the muse way too easily
and that his wife is too quick to believe that he
isn’t putting the stones to Sarah. But those
are very minor objections in a film this
entertaining.
1:37
-  for brief
nudity
|
