Big Business

Starring:  Bette Midler, Lily Tomlin

Year:  1988

Running Time:  97 minutes

A Bette Midler comedy is the perfect tonic  to lift your spirits when you're feeling down (see: Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Ruthless People, Big Business, Hocus Pocus, First Wives Club, etc.).  The Divine Miss M never fails to light up the screen and you can't help but smile or giggle or laugh out loud in response to her unique deliveries and distinctive facial expressions.  Her comedic magic can redeem just about any otherwise mediocre film, such as Big Business, co-starring the fabulous Lily Tomlin.  Indeed, while the film itself received lukewarm reviews when it was released, both Bette and Lily were nominated for the American Comedy Award for Funniest Actress in a Motion Picture for their performances and Bette went to win.

The move is a contemporary take on three classics, namely Aesop's The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper and Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors. It centers on two sets of twins who were mismatched at birth.  The move starts on a rural road in West Virginia.  A wealthy woman goes into labor and has no choice but to give birth in a small town hospital at the same time that a poor farm woman gives birth.  Both deliver twin girls but the old nurse accidentally switches two of the babies. Both sets of parents name their newborns Sadie and Rose.

The film then jumps forward to New York City.  Enter the rich and bitchy Sadie (Midler) in her signature polka dot skirt and wide-brimmed hat.  She runs a company, Moramax, with her dowdy and "wispy wispy wispy" sister, Rose (Tomlin).  It was also hilarious to see a little Seth Green as Sadie's spoiled brat of a son, Jason.  It is revealed that Sadie wants to unload a small furniture factory called Hollowmade which their father had purchased when they were born in Jupiter Hollow but needs to secure the approval of the company's shareholders.

We then see the other sisters at what appears to be a county fair in Jupiter Hollow, where a fiery Rose (forewman at the Hollowmade factory) is trying to save the factory and the town.  We are treated to a yodelling routine by Sadie in a milkmaid's outfit, who feels that she doesn't belong in rural West Virginia and dreams of a better life in the big city.  So she is thrilled when Rose informs her that they are going to NYC to advocate for Hollowmade and the people of their town.  

Their arrival at the airport coincides with rich Sadie and Rose's trip to the airport to welcome Hollowmade's prospective buyer, a wealthy Italian businessman named Fabio.  Predictably, the businessman mistakes rural Sadie and Rose for NYC Sadie and Rose and drives off with them in the latter's limo.  Both sets of twins end up at the Plaza Hotel where the rest of the film plays out.  There are a lot of farcical misunderstandings and near-misses (an elevator with one twin closing as another opens with the other twin) with four different men pursuing the sisters romantically. 

I think Sheila Benson from the Los Angeles Times summed up the movie pretty accurately when she described it as a "bright whirligig of a movie", stating: "As you watch its buoyant hilarity, the intricacies flow smoothly as honey off a spoon...Like a sensational party the night before, "Big Business" may not bear the closest scrutiny in the cold light of day, but it gives an irresistible glow at the time".