Clearly made by veterans of the business, this is the story of the twilight years in a film-makers life. Well... a successful, famous one, anyway. Numerous luminaries just off the Highest Paid rack appear: Ally Sheedy, Isabella Rossellini, Dudley Moore, and the ever-willing-to-make-a-fool-of-himself Little Richard in a hysterical turn as the President of Cleveland (don't worry, it doesn't make much more sense if you've seen the film).
I love Danny Aiello, and it isn't often I get to see him in a lead role, so I was inclined to like this movie from the get-go. Danny's great as an aging director who's reviewing his life, and his work, and finding himself coming up short from his childhood expectations. We follow the two days leading up to the premiere of Harry Stone's new movie, "The Pickle." It doesn't make it any easier to write this review that the films both bear the same name, so for now, I will refer to this movie-within-a-movie Pickle as "The Pickle Within". The Human Pickle comes later.
"The Pickle Within" is atrocious. On every level. And this is plaguing Harry Stone to no end. He reassesses each of his relationships; with his first wife, played nicely by Dyan Cannon; his current girlfriend, an English-language debut by the stunning Clotilde Courau; his daughter and her husband, both perpetually short of cash after growing accustomed to their father's celebrity lifestyle; even one of his many brief ex-wives Patti, whose Chinese accent is hysterically strong when she talks, but disappears when she sings.
The people in Harry's life are truly funny stereotypes, exclusively played by talented people who happen to fall outside Hollywood's A-List (though a few have been there in the past).
Ultimately, the path of Harry's life leads him to realize that yes, indeed, he himself is the Pickle (there it is... the Human Pickle), who, with warts, age, sourness, and all, is still a valuable person (cue inspirational music).
I love Danny Aiello, and it isn't often I get to see him in a lead role, so I was inclined to like this movie from the get-go. Danny's great as an aging director who's reviewing his life, and his work, and finding himself coming up short from his childhood expectations. We follow the two days leading up to the premiere of Harry Stone's new movie, "The Pickle." It doesn't make it any easier to write this review that the films both bear the same name, so for now, I will refer to this movie-within-a-movie Pickle as "The Pickle Within". The Human Pickle comes later.
"The Pickle Within" is atrocious. On every level. And this is plaguing Harry Stone to no end. He reassesses each of his relationships; with his first wife, played nicely by Dyan Cannon; his current girlfriend, an English-language debut by the stunning Clotilde Courau; his daughter and her husband, both perpetually short of cash after growing accustomed to their father's celebrity lifestyle; even one of his many brief ex-wives Patti, whose Chinese accent is hysterically strong when she talks, but disappears when she sings.
The people in Harry's life are truly funny stereotypes, exclusively played by talented people who happen to fall outside Hollywood's A-List (though a few have been there in the past).
Ultimately, the path of Harry's life leads him to realize that yes, indeed, he himself is the Pickle (there it is... the Human Pickle), who, with warts, age, sourness, and all, is still a valuable person (cue inspirational music).