I’ll Do Anything ** (1994, Nick Nolte, Albert Brooks, Whittni Wright, Tracey Ullman, Joely Richardson, Julie Kavner, Ian McKellen) – Classic Movie Review 8448

Writer-director James L Brooks’s 1994 romantic comedy drama I’ll Do Anything went awry and was a troubled production. It was made as a musical until test audiences rejected it, and the last-minute cutting has damaged it.

Nick Nolte seems one for once at a loss, though he does his best as a talented but resting, struggling actor called Matt Hobbs, who is hampered in his life and his career by the arrival of his precocious six-year-old daughter Jeannie (Whittni Wright) after he is forced to look after her by his ex-wife Beth (Tracey Ullman).

I’ll Do Anything is best as a Tinseltown satire, and the Hollywood scene provides some bright spots and funny moments, but the film never hits a consistent form. It is helped out with fine turns from Albert Brooks as an egomaniacal schlock-film producer and Julie Kavner as his audience-researcher girlfriend.

Also in the cast are Joely Richardson, Julie Kavner, Ian McKellen, Jeb Brown, Joely Fisher, Suzanne Douglas, Robert Joy, Harry Shearer, Maria Pitillo, Chelsea Field, Jake Busey, Amy Brooks, Rosie O’Donnell as Make-Up Person, Patrick Cassidy as Ground Zero Villain, Woody Harrelson as Ground Zero Hero, Anne Heche, Vicki Lewis and Angela Alvarado.

It was a box-office disaster, costing $44,000,000 and earning $10,209,000 in the US.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8448

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