I'll Do Anything
Encyclopedia
I'll Do Anything is a 1994 American
dramedy film written and directed by James L. Brooks
. Its primary plot concerns a down-on-his-luck actor
who suddenly finds himself the sole caretaker of his six-year-old daughter.
, Matt Hobbs proposes to his longtime girlfriend Beth. He says the only thing holding him back is his dedication to his career, one which may not always work out, and Beth says that's one of the things she loves most about him. Little more than a year later, with a baby crying and no job for Matt, Beth is overflowing with resentment. By 1993, the pair have been divorced for several years and are living on opposite coasts. Matt auditions for a role in pompous, self-absorbed, and clueless film producer
Burke Adler's new project but fails to get the part. He does however agree to chauffeur
Adler occasionally. Matt flies to Georgia to pick up his daughter Jeannie for what he believes is a brief visit and discovers Beth is facing a prison term and Jeannie will be living with him for the duration of her sentence. The two return to Hollywood and struggle with their new circumstances and building a relationship (Matt hasn't seen the six-year-old since she was four). When Matt goes in to make a screen test for a lead in a film, he leaves Jeannie with a friend at the studio, and when he picks her up he's stunned to learn she's been cast in a sitcom. There are multiple sub-plots, including one focusing on Matt's relationship with staff script-reader Cathy Breslow and another concerning test screening
analyst Nan Mulhanney and her tumultuous relationship with Adler. While a large part of the film is a satire
of the film industry, it also skewers relationships from various angles.
as an old-fashioned movie musical
and parody of "Hollywood lifestyles and movie clichés", costing £40 million. It featured songs by Carole King
, Prince
, and Sinéad O'Connor
, among others, with choreography
by Twyla Tharp
. When preview audience reactions to the music were overwhelmingly negative, all production numbers from the film were cut and Brooks wrote several new scenes, filming them over three days and spent seven weeks editing the film. Brooks noted: "Something like this not only tries one's soul - it threatens one's soul."
He later said of the film,
, Roger Ebert
called it "one of those offcenter comedies that gets its best moments simply by looking at people and seeing how funny, how pathetic, how wonderful they sometimes can be . . . it's a bright, edgy, funny story about people who have all the talent they need, but not all the luck . . . It is helpful, I think, to simply forget about the missing songs, and recognize that I'll Do Anything is a complete movie without them - smart, original, subversive." Janet Maslin
of the New York Times described it as "droll" and "improbably buoyant."
released by Varèse Sarabande
, along with four instrumental tracks by the film's composer, Hans Zimmer
. While other versions of songs penned by Prince resurfaced on some of his later projects, Girl 6
and The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale
, none of the actual performances from the movie were ever officially released.
Although James L. Brooks has mentioned he would like to release a Directors Cut restoring the musical numbers and including a making-of documentary
, that project has yet to come to fruition. The film's commercially released version is available on DVD
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
dramedy film written and directed by James L. Brooks
James L. Brooks
James Lawrence Brooks is an American director, producer and screenwriter. Growing up in North Bergen, New Jersey, Brooks endured a fractured family life and passed the time by reading and writing. After dropping out of New York University, he got a job as an usher at CBS, going on to write for the...
. Its primary plot concerns a down-on-his-luck actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
who suddenly finds himself the sole caretaker of his six-year-old daughter.
Synopsis
In 1980, on the night he fails to win an Emmy AwardEmmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
, Matt Hobbs proposes to his longtime girlfriend Beth. He says the only thing holding him back is his dedication to his career, one which may not always work out, and Beth says that's one of the things she loves most about him. Little more than a year later, with a baby crying and no job for Matt, Beth is overflowing with resentment. By 1993, the pair have been divorced for several years and are living on opposite coasts. Matt auditions for a role in pompous, self-absorbed, and clueless film producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
Burke Adler's new project but fails to get the part. He does however agree to chauffeur
Chauffeur
A chauffeur is a person employed to drive a passenger motor vehicle, especially a luxury vehicle such as a large sedan or limousine.Originally such drivers were always personal servants of the vehicle owner, but now in many cases specialist chauffeur service companies, or individual drivers provide...
Adler occasionally. Matt flies to Georgia to pick up his daughter Jeannie for what he believes is a brief visit and discovers Beth is facing a prison term and Jeannie will be living with him for the duration of her sentence. The two return to Hollywood and struggle with their new circumstances and building a relationship (Matt hasn't seen the six-year-old since she was four). When Matt goes in to make a screen test for a lead in a film, he leaves Jeannie with a friend at the studio, and when he picks her up he's stunned to learn she's been cast in a sitcom. There are multiple sub-plots, including one focusing on Matt's relationship with staff script-reader Cathy Breslow and another concerning test screening
Test screening
A test screening is a preview screening of a movie or television show before its general release in order to gauge audience reaction. Preview audiences are selected from a cross-section of the population, and are usually asked to complete a questionnaire or provide feedback in some form. Harold...
analyst Nan Mulhanney and her tumultuous relationship with Adler. While a large part of the film is a satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
of the film industry, it also skewers relationships from various angles.
Cast
- Nick NolteNick NolteNicholas King "Nick" Nolte is an American actor whose career has spanned over five decades, peaking in the 1990s when his commercial success made him one of the most popular celebrities of that decade.-Early life:...
- Matt Hobbs - Albert BrooksAlbert BrooksAlbert Lawrence Brooks is an American actor, voice actor, writer, comedian and director. He received an Academy Award nomination in 1987 for his role in Broadcast News...
- Burke Adler - Julie KavnerJulie KavnerJulie Deborah Kavner is an American film and television actress, comedian and voice artist. Noted for her role as Marge Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons, she also voices other characters for the show, including Jacqueline Bouvier, and Patty and Selma Bouvier.Born in Los...
- Nan Mulhanney - Joely RichardsonJoely RichardsonJoely Kim Richardson is an English actress, most known recently for her role as Queen Catherine Parr in the Showtime television show The Tudors and Julia McNamara in the television drama Nip/Tuck...
- Cathy Breslow - Whittni WrightWhittni WrightWhittni Wright was an American child actress.Wright made her movie debut in 1994's I'll Do Anything as the bratty daughter of actor Nick Nolte. She was nominated for the Best Performance by an Actress Under Ten in a Motion Picture at the 16th Youth In Film Awards...
- Jeannie Hobbs - Tracey UllmanTracey UllmanTracey Ullman is a British stage and television actress, comedienne, singer, dancer, screenwriter and author ....
- Beth Hobbs - Joely FisherJoely FisherJoely Fisher is an American actress best known for her work on television as Paige Clark on Ellen as well as Joy Stark in the Fox sitcom Til Death, and also on stage and in films.-Background:...
- Female D Person - Vicki LewisVicki LewisVicki Lewis is an American film, stage, television and voice actress best known for her role as Beth in the NBC sitcom NewsRadio.-Personal life:...
- Millie - Anne HecheAnne HecheAnne Celeste Heche is an American actress, director, and screenwriter. She started her career on the daytime soap opera Another World, for which she won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1991. Heche gradually landed supporting roles in feature films, and in 1997 appeared in I Know What You Did Last Summer,...
- Claire - Ian McKellenIan McKellenSir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE is an English actor. He has received a Tony Award, two Academy Award nominations, and five Emmy Award nominations. His work has spanned genres from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction...
- John Earl McAlpine - Angela AlvaradoAngela AlvaradoAngela Alvarado Rosa is an American actress and music video director. She is the wife of singer Draco Rosa.Alvarado was born in New York City of Puerto Rican descent. Alvarado is the sister of Magali Alvarado. She first met her husband during the production of the 1988 film Salsa. In 1990, the...
- Lucy
Production
Originally I'll Do Anything was conceived and filmed by James L. BrooksJames L. Brooks
James Lawrence Brooks is an American director, producer and screenwriter. Growing up in North Bergen, New Jersey, Brooks endured a fractured family life and passed the time by reading and writing. After dropping out of New York University, he got a job as an usher at CBS, going on to write for the...
as an old-fashioned movie musical
Musical film
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...
and parody of "Hollywood lifestyles and movie clichés", costing £40 million. It featured songs by Carole King
Carole King
Carole King is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. King and her former husband Gerry Goffin wrote more than two dozen chart hits for numerous artists during the 1960s, many of which have become standards. As a singer, King had an album, Tapestry, top the U.S...
, Prince
Prince (musician)
Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...
, and Sinéad O'Connor
Sinéad O'Connor
Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor is an Irish singer-songwriter. She rose to fame in the late 1980s with her debut album The Lion and the Cobra and achieved worldwide success in 1990 with a cover of the song "Nothing Compares 2 U"....
, among others, with choreography
Choreography
Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements in which motion, form, or both are specified. Choreography may also refer to the design itself, which is sometimes expressed by means of dance notation. The word choreography literally means "dance-writing" from the Greek words "χορεία" ...
by Twyla Tharp
Twyla Tharp
Twyla Tharp is an American dancer and choreographer, who lives and works in New York City.-Early years:Tharp was born in 1941 on a farm in Portland, Indiana, and was named after Twila Thornburg, the "Pig Princess" of the 89th Annual Muncie Fair in Indiana.she spend hours working on it to help her...
. When preview audience reactions to the music were overwhelmingly negative, all production numbers from the film were cut and Brooks wrote several new scenes, filming them over three days and spent seven weeks editing the film. Brooks noted: "Something like this not only tries one's soul - it threatens one's soul."
He later said of the film,
Critical reaction
In his three-star review in the Chicago Sun-TimesChicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
, Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
called it "one of those offcenter comedies that gets its best moments simply by looking at people and seeing how funny, how pathetic, how wonderful they sometimes can be . . . it's a bright, edgy, funny story about people who have all the talent they need, but not all the luck . . . It is helpful, I think, to simply forget about the missing songs, and recognize that I'll Do Anything is a complete movie without them - smart, original, subversive." Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...
of the New York Times described it as "droll" and "improbably buoyant."
Music
One of the original songs meant to be performed in the film is heard during the closing credits and is included on the soundtrack albumSoundtrack album
A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television program. In some cases, not all the tracks from the movie are included in the album; however there are rare cases of songs in the trailers that do not appear in...
released by Varèse Sarabande
Varèse Sarabande
Varèse Sarabande is an American record label, distributed by Universal Music Group, which specializes in film scores and original cast recordings. It aims to reissue rare or unavailable albums as well as newer releases by artists no longer under a contract...
, along with four instrumental tracks by the film's composer, Hans Zimmer
Hans Zimmer
Hans Florian Zimmer is a German film composer and music producer. He has composed music for over 100 films, including critically acclaimed film scores for The Lion King , Crimson Tide , The Thin Red Line , Gladiator , The Dark Knight and Inception .Zimmer spent the early part of his career in the...
. While other versions of songs penned by Prince resurfaced on some of his later projects, Girl 6
Girl 6
Girl 6 may refer to:*Girl 6, a 1996 film by Spike Lee*Girl 6 , the soundtrack for the film, composed by Prince*“Girl 6” , the title song for the soundtrack...
and The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale
The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale
The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale the twenty-second studio album by Prince. The album was recorded from 1985 through 1994. It was released by Warner Bros. Records without his co-operation and at the same time as his Arista album release the same year, Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic...
, none of the actual performances from the movie were ever officially released.
Although James L. Brooks has mentioned he would like to release a Directors Cut restoring the musical numbers and including a making-of documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
, that project has yet to come to fruition. The film's commercially released version is available on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
.
External links
- "They Just Gotta Trust This Guy" - Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
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