Starring Jessica Simpson and Luke Wilson (and costarring Andy Dick), virtual straight-to-video romantic comedy Blonde Ambition has all the ingredients of a classic, slack-jawed trainwreck, and at the 50-minute mark of the movie, when a group of visiting Norwegian priests burst into a karaoke version of “Baby Got Back,” it sure seems every bit as bad as feared when first firing up the DVD player. Yet the modest, to-scale surprise of Blonde Ambition is that, all things considered, it doesn’t suck nearly as much as it should. In fact, it goes down mostly with just a shrug.



Simpson stars as Katie Gregorstitch, a naive, gum-smacking, small-town Oklahoma beauty who goes to New York City to visit her long-time boyfriend. When (big shock) he turns out to be a philanderer, Katie finds (or lucks her way into, really) a job at a top-notch construction firm, where scheming vice president Debra (Penelope Ann Miller) and her underling Freddy (Dick) have their eyes set on unseating Ronald Connelly (Larry Miller), the firm’s head honcho. Rachael Leigh Cook and Willie Nelson also pop up in small roles as Katie’s family, seemingly paying off favors.

Blonde Ambition is rather wanly plotted, and its allusions to The Seven Year Itch are obvious, even without the visual signpost “homage” of the latter movie’s title on a nearby marquee. Directed by Scott Marshall (son of Garry,  nephew of Penny), the movie clearly aims to be a Mary Tyler Moore-type, little-girl-in-the-big-city revamping of Simpson’s image. I previously touched on the theatrical misfortunes of Blonde Ambition, as well as its risible surplus of producers, and the truth is that Simpson just isn’t at all a very good actress, even when the stakes are drastically lowered. In short, she’s a Betty Grable pin-up queen, tantalizing only as an unknowable commodity. The second she opens her mouth, the illusion is shattered. Both on screen — with her forcedly, faux-sexy twang — and off, Simpson is play-acting what she’s been told is sexy, and the dimness and swallowed panic come through in equal measure. Here, though, it certainly doesn’t help that she’s appearing opposite Wilson, who may be the most drab studio-vetted leading man of the last quarter-century.* Watching these two feign a burgeoning attraction is like staring at the sun — it leaves a painful, lingering memory, no matter what you move on to do next.

And yet Blonde Ambition is a lot less awful than it could (maybe even should) be. Miller in particular gives the movie some unexpected lift, not the least of which because his performance — at once bemused and distracted — seems to serve as a subtle mimicking and commentary on Simpson’s outsized, real-world fame. “That horsey grin insults us both,” he says at one point. “And what’s with those teeth? They’re too white, like an artist’s rendering of teeth.” Marshall, too, stages scenes in a smart, forgiving manner (for the most part avoiding long takes), and his aunt Penny drops in for a nice, unforced, yet still amusing cameo. If there’s certainly little to actively recommend the movie, it goes down smoother than anticipated.

Housed in a regular Amray case, Blonde Ambition comes with a nine-plus-minute making-of featurette, during which Simpson and her producer dad (whose shingle, yes, is “Papa Joe Film Productions”) own up in rather candid fashion to the movie being an attempt to break free from the typical tabloid coverage of Jessica. While I’d argue that there isn’t much there absent the media constuction, it’s at least refreshing to hear an acknowledgement that such considerations were at least a factor in tackling and shaping this flick. The only other bonus feature consists of three deleted scenes that run a total of four minutes, with one — a rooftop-set piece involving green-screen work — explaining the origin of Katie’s bizarre toothbrush fixation. I checked scrupulously for an Easter egg, and thankfully there isn’t one. C- (Movie) C (Disc)

* – the irony of course being that if there were one greater, you certainly couldn’t remember their name to cite