Cheap Soapdish (DVD) (Sally Field, Kevin Kline) (Michael Hoffman) Price

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Customer Reviews of Soapdish

A Laugh Riot!
Sally Field leads an all star cast in the laugh riot "Soapdish." Ms. Field has never been funnier or more appealing, and Kevin Kline matches her every step of the way, as do co-stars Whoopi Goldberg and Robert Downey, Jr. all the way down to Carrie Fisher in a small role. This is one nutty, crazy and funny movie. Everything about it works, which makes it an almost perfect comedy. If you really, really like Sally Field (and who with taste doesn't?) then you'll love this movie.

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Hilarious!!
This is a really funny movie about a soap opera, and the drama that goes on behind the scenes. Being a soap opera fan myself, I found this to be extremely funny as the movie pokes fun at the genre. The movie centers around a soap opera titled "The Sun Also Sets". Sally Field plays the big diva of the set, a real soap diva (a la Susan Lucci) who is friends with the show's headwriter (who is played by Whoopi Goldberg). The backstage drama upstages the drama that happens on screen each day, and takes a life of it's own. There's enough deceit, betrayal, backstabbing and other soap staples to occupy a lot of airtime on any soap opera! It's a very satrical movie, and it's quite funny how everyone's dirty laundry gets aired for everyone to see! I have to say that Sally Field is the scene stealer though, she has the soap vixen part down PAT and it's so entertaining to watch. I won't give away the plot, just watch the movie and enjoy the scandal. The movie also features Kevin Cline, Elizabeth Shue Robert Downey Jr., Cathy Moriarty, Teri Hatcher, Kathy Najimy, to name a few of the superstars. A really funny movie that you will watch over and over again.

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What if the real soap opera was behind the cameras?
"Soapdish" is a soap opera about a soap opera, which indulges in the appealing idea that what is happening behind the cameras is more sex, secrets, and scandal that what is happening in front. That is, until the end when, like "Tootsie," the dirty laundry is aired on live television. The focal point of the insanity is the legendary Celeste Talbert (Sally Field), the aging star of "The Sun Also Sets." When we first meet Celeste, accepting her umpteenth acting award, she thanks her co-workers, most of who are sitting there with frozen smiles muttering things that are not nice underneath their collective breaths. Clearly Celeste is a prima donna who needs to have a comeuppance.

The person who wants to be that comeuppance is bombshell Montana Moorehead (Cathy Morairty), who plays Nurse Nan on the show. She is enticing the show's producer, David Barnes (Robert Downey Jr.) with promises of naked fun to write Celeste's character Maggie out of the show. Towards that end he brings back Dr. Rod Randall, the character played by Maggie's ex-lover Jeffrey Anderson (Kevin Kline), despite the fact that his character was written out of the show after being decapitated by a tractor trailer while driving a pink convertible in the Yukon on his way to visit his brother, an ex-con named Frances. Fortunately there was a revolutionary two-day operation.

However, the monkey wrench in everybody's plan is young Lori Craven (Elisabeth Shue), who manages to worm her way onto the show and Celeste's dressing room. Those who actually watch more than television soap operas and were weaned on theatrical efforts along the same line should be thinking about "All About Eve" at this point, but, no, that is too mundane a plot line for this farce and Lori turns out to be the spark that starts a whole new round robin of the aforementioned sex, scandal and secrets.

With a script by Robert Harling ("Steel Magnolias") and Andrew Bergman ("The Freshman"), this 1991 comedy directed by Michael Hoffman ("Restoration") piles on the complications and tries to keep things going fast enough to keep the momentum going before it collapses. Fortunately "Soapdish" saves the best part for last, when it looks like the only thing that will save the day is an emergency brain transplant in a Jamican restaurant. Obviously everybody in the cast is trying to upstage everybody else, and the clear winner is Kevin Kline, who not only can figure out how to use his real voice when preparing for an important conversation but refuses to wear his contact lenses in scenes that require him to read off the teleprompter.

Also in the cast of "Soap Opera" are Whoopi Goldberg as Rose Schwartz, the writer who is Celeste's one friend, Teri Hatcher as actress Ariel Maloney, Gary Marshall as network head Edmund Edwards, and Kathy Najimy as the always perky Tawny Miller. Ultimately this comedy will appeal to those who like "Soap" and "Nurse Betty" more than "All My Children" and "As the World Turns," but there is nothing wrong with that, especially since sometimes this movie is as funny as it thinks it is.