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EDITOR'S PICK
What Just Happened is a winningly sharp comedy about two
nail-biting, back-stabbing, roller-coaster weeks in the world of a middle-aged
Hollywood producer -- as he tries to juggle an actual life with an outrageous
series of crises in his day job.
Academy Award® winning director Barry Levinson reunites with Academy Award®
winning actor Robert De Niro and leading producer Art Linson, who wrote the
screenplay based on his bestselling memoir. They all join with an all-star cast
in this rollicking, shrewd tale of a man besieged by people who want him to be
all sorts of things -- a money maker, an ego buster, a bad news breaker, an
artistic champion, a loyal husband, an all-knowing father, not to mention sexy,
youthful and tuned-in - everything except for the one thing he and all the
preposterously behaved people he`s surrounded by really are: bumbling human
beings just trying to survive by any means necessary.
Ben (DE NIRO) is already in over his head trying to balance the tug-of-war of
having two ex-wives and two different families with his latest business venture
- the boldly visionary movie Fiercely starring Sean Penn (SEAN PENN)
- when everything that can go wrong goes completely screwy.
Fiercely looks like an audience-offending flop which draws the ire of
iron-gloved studio chief Lou (CATHERINE KEENER), who forces him into tangling
with the film`s rebellious and drug-addled director Jeremy (MICHAEL WINCOTT).
Meanwhile, he`s confused and bewitched by his ex Kelly (ROBIN WRIGHT PENN) who
can`t make up her mind about him; shocked by his daughter Zoe (KRISTEN STEWART),
who seems to have grown up overnight; infuriated by his screenwriter friend
Scott (STANLEY TUCCI) who`s trying to make a deal with him while making moves on
his former wife; horrified by a hirsute Bruce Willis (BRUCE WILLIS) and
flummoxed by Willis` nebbishy agent Dick (JOHN TURTURRO), who`s scared to death
of his own clients.
Somehow amidst all the madness, treachery, deceit, runaway egos, rampant
commercialism, personal politics and atrocious behavior of America`s
dream-making machinery, Ben has to find a way not just to make it to Cannes with
a finished film, but to cope . . .
What Just Happened is based on the acclaimed, bestselling memoir by veteran
Hollywood producer Art Linson, who wrote the screenplay and produced the film
with Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal. The executive producers are Todd Wagner
and Mark Cuban.
The behind-the-scenes team includes cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine (Talk To
Me, The Beat My Heart Skipped), editor Hank Corwin (The New World), production
designer Stefania Cella (Man of the Year) and composer Marcelo Zarvos (The Good
Shepherd). The film is set to a soundtrack that mixes the classic cinematic
sounds of Ennio Morricone with the songs of Nick Drake, Citizen Cope, Dire
Straits, Bebel Gilberto and Nina Simone, among others.