Soapdish, 1991

Soapdish, 1991
Director: Michael Hoffmann
Cast: Elisabeth Shue, Kevin Kline, Sally Field, Robert Downey Jr.





Stage: Home TV selection


Soapdish in short: Celeste Talbert has been the queen of the soaps for over two decades. Montana Moorehead needs to get her out of her way before she can move on and begins her program to get her to leave. She hires an old boyfriend of Celeste to be on the show and has Celeste become a murderer in the script, but each attempt has unforseen consequences.

Preps: I have never heard of the piece and the cast in the beginning drives my attention sharp. Therefore I sit and stare :)


Reality: Making soap operas must be a killer in terms of scenarios. Always same issues, same drama, same settings. How to make this interesting and appealing to the crowd, this is the big question.

This movie tries to give a background to the soap operas, however, while doing this, it turns into one of them. This piece is namely, nothing more than previous setting of soap dishes it is trying desperately to give a serious insight into. instead, I am looking at a version of a Jerry Springer meets Oprah Winfrey, seasoned with some of the favourite dishes of the past (Dinasty, Dallas, and some of the spanish http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifcuisine of these days.). The only thing missing is Antonio or Alfonso or Jose, coming with his open arms, claiming everlasting love. Nope, I am wrong, here he is. Kevin Kline in role of Jose Armando or whatever those spanish clowns are in soap operas.

In any case, if you are a fan of soap operas, you might enjoy this one. It doesn't have any body, any realistic story, any plot that I could stick my eyes into and no real ending. Which is quite good for a soap opera remake. But very bad to my standards and definitely not my genre. The cast is awful, eventhough distinguished. As if they were making fun of making the movie or presenting themselves. I am sure all of them can do better.


My personal rate: 1,0 (bljah!!)

Soapdish on IMDB