Soapdish

Soapdish (1991) is a Hollywood ensemble comedy you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Michael Hoffman. Sally Field leads a cast that includes Kevin Kline, Robert Downey Jr., Whoopi Goldberg, Elisabeth Shue, Teri Hatcher and Carrie Fisher — all playing people who work on a soap opera and behave considerably worse than their characters do.

Celeste Talbert has been the reigning queen of "The Sun Also Sets" for years. When ratings slip, her scheming co-star Montana and a self-important producer cook up a plan: bring back Celeste's ex-flame Jeffrey Anderson, the man whose character she had written off the show years ago — literally killed off the script. Meanwhile, a new actress auditioning for the show turns out to be Celeste's long-lost daughter, which nobody is supposed to know, which means everyone finds out at the worst possible moment.

The joke the film keeps running is that the soap opera plotlines — absurd, melodramatic, conveniently coincidental — are tamer than what's happening backstage. Kline commits to a deranged Shakespeare subplot with total sincerity, and that commitment is what makes it funny. Stream Soapdish (1991) online on iFILM.