After making trashy movies of Miss Susann's books (yes I am well aware that Susann's novels were not high art, but cripes, those movies were far worse), Hollywood finally got around to making a trashy movie of her life. Instead of basing this travesty on the wonderful Jackie Bio written by Barbara Seaman ("Lovely Me"), they instead chose to base it on an article her former editor, Michael Korda wrote for Vanity Fair. Bearing in mind that Jackie hated Michael with vitriolic passion and that they only worked on one book together. This is as bad a biopic as "Harlow" was. The tone of this movie is all wrong as it veers between slapstick and tear jerking unconvincingly. As much as I respect Bette, she is somewhat miscast as Ms. Susann...in fact there is one glaringly inaccurate scene where Bette complains that the reason that she's not successful as an actress is that she's not skinny and cute...WRONG! Miss Susann in real life was skinny and regarded as very attractive-she just didn't have much, if any talent as a performer. This is one of many inacuracies in the movie. I know it's hard to remain faithful to the facts, but this movie barely even tries to get things straight. Not to mention that Jacqueline was not a borscht belt comic, she was part Jewish, but I think she aspired to being a WASP. The movie did include some of her real life trials-such as her breast cancer and an autistic child, but because the movie starts as a bad farce, these changes in tone are unconvincing at best. All in all, this movie is a stinker and should be avoided at all costs...if you want to se Bette in "loud mouth broad" mode...you are better off renting "Ruthless People."
Review of Isn't She Great
