Film

Who’d want to be a movie producer? As an ever-growing shelf in the library of cinematic memoirs attests, it’s a stressful, thankless role that requires pampering, wheedling, ball busting and dick measuring in equal measures. Based on one such book by Art Linson, What Just Happened follows two weeks in the life of producer Ben (De Niro) as he juggles the demands of two ex-wives (including a winning Robin Wright Penn), preening on- and off-camera talent, no-nonsense studio boss Catherine Keener and other specimens from the Hollywood menagerie.

Unlike The Player and Wag the Dog, Barry Levinson and De Niro’s previous collaboration, What Just Happened is less satire than a heightened spin around the vanity carousel. The very details that lend it credibility—pecking-order peccadilloes, lunch-meeting etiquette—also contribute to a clubby air that keeps things amicable.

But the script is sharp, and the ensemble cast a treat: Stanley Tucci and John Turturro offer sleazy-neurotic support, Sean Penn and Bruce Willis send themselves up nicely, and Michael Wincott impresses as a prima donna Brit director. De Niro’s Ben is comfortingly self-assured; too self-assured, in fact, as we never really feel him to be in serious jeopardy. For all its absurdities, this is less kick in the teeth than nudge in the ribs.