Synopsis
Celeste Talbert is the star of the long-running soap opera "The Sun Also Sets." With the show's ratings down, Celeste's ruthlessly ambitious co-star, Montana Moorehead, and the show's arrogant producer, David Seton Barnes, plot to aggravate her into leaving the show by bringing back her old flame, Jeffrey Anderson, and hiring her beautiful young niece, Lori Craven.
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Cast
- Sally FieldCeleste Talbert
- Kevin KlineJeffrey Anderson
- Robert Downey Jr.David Seton Barnes
- Cathy MoriartyMontana Moorehead
- Teri HatcherAriel Maloney
- Paul JohanssonBolt
- Elisabeth ShueLori Craven
- Whoopi GoldbergRose Schwartz
- Arne NannestadBurton White
- Tim ChoateAD
Recommendations
- 90
Los Angeles Times
A spirited and amusing comedy that posits the engaging notion that the stars of TV soap operas have lives as screwed up and crazy as the characters they play, if not more so. - 88
Chicago Sun-Times
If it doesn't work, it fails spectacularly, but it does work, and it succeeds in making its plot clear even though the basic story device is unending confusion. - 70
The New York Times
Soapdish, directed with good-natured zest by Michael Hoffman, has as serious a split-personality problem as any of its characters, perhaps because its screenplay is the work of Robert Harling (who wrote the story) and Andrew Bergman, two screenwriters with decidedly different comic sensibilities. - 70
Variety
Soapdish aims at a satiric target as big as a Macy’s float and intermittently hits it. Sally Field and Kevin Kline play a feuding pair of romantically involved soap opera stars in this broad but amiable sendup of daytime TV. - 50
Time Out London
Nothing succeeds like excess, this comedy would have us believe. But the thwarted egos, rampant libidos, and starry cast - while wonderful at first - begin to look frayed around half-way through. - 50
TV Guide Magazine
The actors look like they're having a great time, playing exaggerated versions of their stereotyped neuroses, and the complex plot's fast movement keeps the audience's attention well. But with all this, something is very wrong with SOAPDISH: It isn't all that funny. - 50
Rolling Stone
The satire loses its edge as the filmmakers wrongheadedly try to humanize this nest of vipers. Soapdish is more fun when it's spitting venom than when it's licking wounds. - 42
Entertainment Weekly
Soapdish makes the tackiness of soap operas seem far more desperate than funny.
