A wonderful companion piece to Woody Allen's Broadway Danny Rose - he co-wrote and directed but doesn't appear - in which everything is bathed in a red and yellow glow. The time is the 1920s and Broadway playwright David Shayne (John Cusack) vows to direct his own play and protect every word of it from interfering producers. But he finds himself compromising like crazy after accepting backing money from mobster Joe Viterelli and agreeing that the hoodlum's girl (Jennifer Tilly) can play a pivotal role. But to his horror, she's a goo-voiced bimbo (a role the curvaceous Tilly has down to perfection) who can't even pronounce 'masochistic', never mind know what it means. The rest of Shayne's cast is made up of similar oddballs, from Jim Broadbent's compulsive eater Warner to Tracey Ullman's dog-loving Eden. But Dianne Wiest sweeps all before her (and scooped a deserved Best Supporting Actress Oscar), chewing up the scenery and her director as the Norma Desmond-ish star. The film is a bit too long but littered with acid-drop one-liners, most of which come Wiest's way. She doesn't waste a single one.

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