*originally posted june 15, 2017*
On the first day of my 5th grade year my buddy Luke told me that the best film he’d seen over the previous summer wasn’t Die Hard or Big but, in fact, Big Business, a comedy in which Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin each play dual roles. The reason, he explained, was that the film’s conclusion featured all four characters (2 Bette’s, 2 Lily’s) onscreen at the SAME TIME in a special effects bonanza that could rival Star Wars. “You have to see it! It...was...MINT!!!” he told me. So I checked it out again this week for the first time in about 30 years. What happens is this: a rich white couple from NYC are being driven through West Virginia by their black chauffeur (who is the only person of color in this entire flick, BTW. Not cool, dudes) when the rich white lady goes into labor. They find the only hospital within a bajillion miles but....dig this....it’s only open to employees of the town’s furniture factory! So Whitey McBigbux buys the whole GD factory and his wife has her twinsies while, across the hall, some local yokels are also shitting out a set of twins of their own. This members-only hospital operates with just a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a pair of hedge cutters, and one elderly nurse, who OF COURSE mixes up the babies in the hospital nursery. The NYC faction names their daughters Sadie and Rose and, hearing this, and also because people from the south apparently lack creativity and don’t discuss naming their children ahead of time, the yokels also name their daughters Sadie and Rose. Flash forward 40 years to 1988...where...in two separate locations ....someone who looks like Bette Midler has a twin sister who looks like Lily Tomlin...and NO ONE has questioned the fact that they don’t look anything alike! NYC Bette is a tyrannical, materialistic CEO of some non-specific mega company while her bookish sister, NYC Lily, yearns for the country life. Meanwhile back in Yokelsville, Country Bette is stuck singing honky tonk songs while milking a cow (an actual cow) at the County Fair slash parade of southern small town movie life cliches. Country Bette dreams of going to NYC and wearing press-on nails and shopping at Gucci. Hey ladies: you are in your forties: if you want to go to New York then maybe JUST GO? Anyway...the NYC twins’ company is about to strip mine the Country twins’ furniture company...so the Country Twinsies head to NYC to help save their company and OH MY GOD MAKE THIS MOVIE STOP!!! The country twins arrive in NYC where, in a city of 10 million people, they are immediately mistaken for the NYC twins (because all twins cannot be told apart? is this true, twins?). An hour’s worth of extremely mild mistaken identity comedy ensues. Something about a sleazy Italian businessman named Fabrizio Arrevaderci trying to hook up with NYC Bette even though she’s married and has a kid who is totally Seth Green. The Lily’s, meanwhile, are dating Fred Ward and Michael Gross respectively...which means they are dating half the cast of Tremors. Anyway, eventually the twins run into each other in the bathroom of the Plaza Hotel and we are treated to an orgy of special effectsthat makes Avatar look like Tron. And you know...they aren’t all that surprised. So what the fuck, right? The NYC faction lets the Country faction keep their company and they all swap male partners and dance out of the Plaza together while Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love” plays on the soundtrack. Scene.
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