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WISEGIRLS "Wisegirls", co-starring Academy Award winning actress Mira Sorvino and Melora Walters, was directed with very conventional efficiency by David Anspaugh ("Hoosiers"). The drama's script keeps enough surprises up its sleeve to remain entertaining. Its themes of female bonding and friendship suggest a theatrical target of young women, with a more solid afterlife in ancillary. The movie premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival and received a standing ovation. Roger Friedman, Fox News writer, wrote about Mariah's acting: "Carey looks relaxed and comfortable as she plays a savvy waitress in an upscale Staten Island mob joint. Even though she tends to wear skimpy outfits as usual, her line delivery is sharp and she manages to get the right laughs. She shows good comedic timing in places where you wouldn't expect her to get it right." "When I read the script, I didn't realize what this character was going to do for me," Mariah said. "I actually liked the other two characters better. It was going to be really challenging to play this type of character. But I thought she was really funny. Rachel is really the type that takes control during a situation that's frightening. Rachel's kind of the only one of these three characters who grew up with these guys, and so the reason she can be so free and so daring in ways is that to them, she's one of them." "You know, she's frigging Raychel," Mariah added, slipping into a Staten Island accent. "She talks like this. She's yippety-yappety all over the place. She kind of loves to take control, whateva." One of the scenes she enjoyed most included her character getting an ovation for her handling a drunken customer. "A character we have named Johnny the Lush, who gets a little affectionate when he drinks, has kind of grabbed me in a place I didn't want to be grabbed," Mariah said of the scene. "I don't want to be grabbed anyway, so I get to drop his tray and tell him off and kick him out of the restaurant." Mariah's whirlwind schedule at the time of filming "Wisegirls" contributed to her exhaustion that summer, she said. "Wisegirls" started filming in May 2001 and wrapped in July, the same month as her breakdown. Lions Gate Films had intended to release the film in theaters but sold broadcast rights to HBO (which owns Cinemax) the following spring. Three years later, Mariah is still proud of "Wisegirls", despite the crime caper going straight to DVD. The film was a hit at the Sundance Film Festival, but following Carey's disastrous reviews for her debut movie "Glitter", "Wisegirls" never hit the big screen. She says the film got such a good reception, even Sean Penn praised her performance. She tells the New York Post, "That made me see how good an experience movies can be. When we showed it at Sundance, we got a standing ovation. Too bad nobody remembers the good movie, they just remember the great debacle." "Sean Penn came up to me at a party after Sundance and told me he saw and enjoyed 'Wisegirls', and not to give up just because of one bad movie. I was thrilled. You can't get better praise and advice in the movie business."
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