The Muse Review
by Jon Popick (mailbot AT sick-boy DOT com)August 26th, 1999
PLANET SICK-BOY: http://www.sick-boy.com
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 - Rated PG-13 for brief nudity)
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