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Comic writer-director Albert Brooks (
Lost in America,
Defending Your Life,
Mother) specializes in difficult characters. Not characters who are neurotic in a fumbling but endearing Woody Allen kind of way; Brooks creates characters who would be a pain in the ass to know and are sometimes kind of excruciating to even watch--which is not to say that they're not also extremely funny. However,
The Muse manages to soften the edges of his persona while sustaining the humor. Steven (Brooks), a screenwriter, can't get anyone interested in his scripts. An extremely successful friend recommends that he talk to Sarah (Sharon Stone), who is--according the friend--a muse, one of the daughters of the Greek god Zeus who inspire creativity. The only problem is that Sarah not only gives, she takes: She demands gifts of diamond necklaces, expensive hotel rooms, late-night trips to expensive restaurants, and virtual servitude from whomever she's taken under her wing. This initially arouses suspicion in Steven's wife, Laura (Andie MacDowell), but soon Laura is asking for her own inspiration and it's Steven who starts to get jealous. Stone runs wild with her capricious character and an abundance of tart cameos (from Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, Rob Reiner, Jennifer Tilly, Cybill Shepherd, and Wolfgang Puck) add juice to the proceedings.
--Bret Fetzer
The writer-director-actor Albert Brooks, caught in a limbo of his own making. Brooks plays a Hollywood screenwriter who has lost his way and who applies for help from a daughter of Zeus-a Muse (Sharon Stone) who supplies lucrative suggestions to established writers and directors. The Muse, however, turns out to be a demanding and flighty broad who moves in on the screenwriter and displaces him from his own bed, and her suggestions for movies are banal. In this elaborate conceit, there is the potential for a good spoof of Hollywood success, which seems at times to operate by mystique or by chance, but Brooks doesn't find the momentum or bite in the idea. The movie itself lacks inspiration-it's sluggish and old-Hollywoodish in the worst way, and Brooks's character is a sad sack whose self-pity becomes repellent. There are some sharp scenes about Hollywood ruthlessness, and a few amusing cameos from such luminaries as Martin Scorsese and James Cameron, who apply to the Muse for help. With Andie MacDowell and Jeff Bridges. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006
The New Yorker
