Book Review: Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions by Ed Zwick

Tom Cruise and Ed Zwick

Ed Zwick's Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Forty Something Years in Hollywood is an engaging if lightweight memoir by the writer-director-producer. Zwick rose to fame initially, along with his artistic partner Marshall Herskovitz, as one of the showrunners for the television program thirtysomething which ran from 1987 to 1990. I found the show inane and solipsistic, but Zwick's reminiscences immediately won me over by acknowledging his own characters' "whining" and "self-absorbed" behavior. This memoir has a gently self-deprecating tome that wears well. When Zwick has scores to settle, say with Matthew Broderick, Julia Roberts or Harvey Weinstein, he does so without resorting to pettiness or meanness. He offers some dish, often in blind items, but never seems cruel. He offers glimpses of his stable family life, but is willing to take the fall as a man who may have sacrificed quality time with his loved ones for a career in television and film.

I find Zwick to be a midlevel talent with an almost equal share of good and bad in his filmography. On the plus side, I enjoyed My So-Called Life, Glory, and Blood Diamond, and, to a lesser extent, Legends of the Fall. Not much else, but this book reveals his gifts as a raconteur. He offers priceless anecdotes about a wide range of figures: from Nina Foch to Sydney Pollack to Merrick Garland to Denzel Washington. I've read a lot of Hollywood memoirs that are more grandiose and salacious, but the pleasant tone of this book reflects well on its author.