Big Business

Big Business (1988)

Plot summary

(1 vote)

The Sheltons of New York City are going to spend some time at a vaction home in the mountains, but limo driver gets lost and somewhere near Jupiter Hollow, West Virginia, Mrs. Shelton goes into labor. The Sheltons buy the Hollowmade Furniture Factory so that they can use the company-only hospital. At the same time, Mrs. Ratliff of Jupiter Hollow goes into labor. Both Mrs. Ratliff and Mrs. Shelton have twin girls. Both name their daughters Rose and Sadie. The nurse is very old and can't see very well, and mixes up the twins at birth.

Fast foward 35, 40 years. City Sadie (the actual Shelton baby) and Rose are the head of Moramax corporation, and they have a big deal on the line to sell of a "little company they've had forever", Hollowmade, to an Italian investor. The stockholders are going to vote on the sale at a large meeting at the Plaza hotel in two days. Their personal lives are not going well. City Sadie is divorced from Michael and has a son, Jason, who is obsessed with Sylvester Stallone. City Rose has recently broken up with Dr. Jay, who doesn't share Rose's vision of a little house in the country with fresh veggies and ducks, and also can't stand Sadie. Sadie is informed by her two gay assistants, Chuck and Graham, that the factory foreman from Hollowmade is threatening to come up to New York and "raise some hell and kick some snooty new york asses."

Cut to Jupiter Hollow, and we find that Country Rose is the factory foreman. She's in the middle of a fundraiser to get enough money so she can go to New York to protest the sale of Hollowmade. Country Sadie is helping out by singing in a show at the fundraiser. Country Sadie has always felt out of place in the little town, and jumps at the chance to go to New York to "help out her sister". Rose's professional mini-golfer boyfriend, Roone, asks her to marry him, but she won't answer him and also won't tell him that she's going to New York during the putt-putt Master's.

Country Sadie and Rose go to New York, and they are mistaken for their city counterparts at the airport (the other two are there to pick up Fabio Abericci, the Italian buyer), and are whisked off in a limo with Fabio to the suite at the Plaza meant for the city Sadie and Rose, while they are left to their defenses braving the subway and the prospect of not having a hotel room.

Hilarity ensues as the mixed up twins run into each other's love interests, and Chuck and Graham run around the city looking for "R. Ratliff and his sister".

The movie culminates in one of the best bathroom sequences ever, where the sisters all meet. Then off to the stockholders meeting. The country pair have convinced City Rose not to approve the sale because Fabio intends to stripmine Jupiter hollow, so they lock city Sadie in a closet and country Rose stays with her, while the out-of-place two convince the stockholders not to sell the company.

Aj

Continuity mistake: Better Midler's "country" character spills syrup on her white jacket and tries to rub it away. The size and shape of the stain change as she leaves the restaurant and is seen in the hotel lobby.

Ral0618

More mistakes in Big Business

Rose Shelton: I hate my job... I hate shopping... I hate New York in June. How about you?
Sadie Ratliff: I hate grits, and I hate men who smell like beer and bean dip, and I hate making love in the back of recreational vehicles!

More quotes from Big Business

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