A producer's life imitates art

Robert DeNiro plays a tightly wound movie producer in Barry Levinson's new film What Just Happened. Written by former Chicagoan, Art Linson, himself a producer (Heat, Fight Club), the film shows much of the inner struggles of a man trying to stay in control of making movie magic, while his personal life is anything but. No matter what happens, he is never able to completely grasp the control necessary to make things work in this world. Through it all, he is so busy trying to make situations work, that he never really has time to deal with anything, and just detaches himself from one crisis to another.

Ben (Robert DeNiro) lives in a modest apartment in Hollywood. You understand why he lives like that, after you discover him picking up his kids from 2 failed marriages, from his former lavish mansions, and driving them to school. He is clearly still in love with wife #2, Kelly (Robin Penn Wright), but is too busy with his work conflicts to give her the time she needs. It is this situation that probably drove them apart in the first place, and he is doomed to repeat that failure.

Ben is engaged in production of two movies. One film, which stars Sean Penn has a temperamental director, played by Micheal Wincott. The movie has a disasterous ending (a dog gets shot in the head), but he clings to his art, and refuses to change it, much to the chagrin of the studio exec played by Catherine Keener. The other film is a big budget action film starring Bruce Willis. Willis (who plays himself) shows up for the first day of shooting, overweight, with a full beard. He refuses to shave, and the studio threatens to kill the film before it starts and sue everyone. Ben spends the whole film trying to resolve these conflicts.

While material like this has been handled before, most notably in films like The Player, Levinson still provides us with some good dark comedy, and we develop an genuine sympathy for the tortured character of Ben. This is not so much an expose of the inner working of Hollywood, but a glimpse into the day to day frustrations of a man who on one hand is juggling his position in the Vanity Fair Hollywood Power 30 photo, and the rest of the time dealing with one crisis until his cel phone rings, and he is dragged into another problem.

I certainly understand that there is a delicate balance between art and commerce, and at what point you have to yield your personal expression for the good of a project. A producer has to walk that line between those two every day. When you meet Ben, he is portrayed as successful, or someone who can negotiate that thin line. As you get to know him, you wonder, what price is success?

Written By Shelley Howard For DAME