By Mike Collett-White
CANNES, France (Reuters) - Robert De Niro plays a movie
producer whose professional and personal life lurches from
crisis to crisis in a new comedy on the cut-throat world of
Hollywood and its relationship with the Cannes film festival.
The final scenes of "What Just Happened" play out in the
Riviera resort where De Niro's picture has its premiere, making
it a fitting closing film for the festival on Sunday.
Sean Penn and Bruce Willis also send themselves up in the
satire based on the memoirs of veteran Hollywood producer Art
Linson and directed by Barry Levinson, who made "Rain Man."
De Niro plays Ben, who must juggle two ex-wives and their
families, a pill-popping bi-polar director, a ruthless studio
boss demanding radical changes to his picture and Willis
steadfastly refusing to shave his beard for an action hero
role.
The film casts an ironic eye on the process of getting
movies made, how cash outweighs quality almost every time and
how no one in Hollywood is safe from the whims of studio
bosses, superstar actors and the movie-going public.
"It really is a place where most people are not doing
well," said Linson, when asked about how Hollywood was
perceived. "I know it's hard to believe.
"Most people are there doing their best not to be asked to
leave. I don't care if you're Steven Spielberg or some new
director, everybody is like a snail on a glass trying to hang
on and not to slip down and lose their standing."
DE NIRO'S "ANXIETIES"
