Edward Norton kind of has a reputation for playing intense roles. Arguably his two most famous films are American History X and Fight Club, where he plays a reformed white Supremacist and one half of a deeply unbalanced domestic terrorist, respectively. But then you've got Death to Smoochy, which is this delightfully dark comedy where he purposefully goes against everything that has made him famous. The film takes a look at the seedy underbelly of children's entertainment, where the squeaky clean Sheldon Mopes (Norton) is trying to change the world one smile at a time. There's no end of enjoyment you can get from seeing a man famous for curbstomping a carjacker suddenly wearing a purple rhino costume and saying things like, "Somebody toss me a towel, because my head is swimming." Add an unusually camp Robin Williams and a brilliant dragging-his-name-through-the-mud plot involving a Nazi rally, and you've got a massively underrated comedy that should have been much bigger than it was. Maybe we can blame the film's poor showing on the fact that virtually everyone finds children's entertainers (with the exception of Mr Rogers, who is a national treasure) deeply, deeply creepy.
Audrey Fox is an ex-film student, which means that she prefers to spend her days in the dark, watching movies and pondering the director's use of diegetic sound. She currently works as an entertainment writer, joyfully rambling about all things film and television related. Add her on Twitter at @audonamission and check out her film blog at 1001moviesandbeyond.com.
