I've always thought of Anne Nicole Smith as a not too bright, cheap-white-trashy country girl. Having watched this, I haven't changed my mind (though her childhood wasn't as poor as she claimed) but she sure comes off as way dumber than I thought.
The affected voice and mannerisms, it just had me cringe over and over. It even made this difficult to watch at times, as did the blatant narcissism. Personally, I never thought her attractive, there was nothing subtle or magical about her, it was a hype I never understood. In this documentary, Anne Nicole Smith comes off as a sadly desperate wannabe - a Marilyn Monroe wannabe, for one, which she was far from. Monroe was authentically goodlooking and actually quite bright (I've read excerpts of her diaries), and had an air of mystery and class and depth. Anne was none of these things. It's like comparing diamonds to gaudy strass. Even Smith's sexually abusive childhood was a lie (to imitate Monroe, I guess), which is a slap in the face to people with real such childhoods.
And the phone calls with Marshall? Entertaining for us to listen in, perhaps, but who recorded them and why? (Does anybody else wonder, I wonder?) Some interactions with the old man and Smith's young son felt borderline abusive to me. The kid calling this very old man "dad" felt off and wrong somehow, like it's all acted and the kid is forced to play along with this folie a deux, this theatre. And no, I'm not even that biased against young bombshells hooking up with billionaire geriatrics (love comes in many shapes), I'm simply biased against these two unstable individuals. Also, I never understood why she wanted HALF of Marshall's money. Couldn't she have settled for a few million, wait what, a million?
To people still insisting she was a "great mom": women who take methadone and god knows what else in the eight month of their pregnancy aren't exemplary mothers, nor are those who push their shy sons to go on their narcissist reality shows.
As for the story with her own real dad (no spoilers), if true (which apparently one never knows with Smith), that IS a sad story, yet my God was she naive!
I'm giving this a fair seven though, because the documentary itself is well made. It's also is a good reminder of what fame can do to the unprepared. But if the makers' intention was to make her more likeable, for me they failed, though by no fault of theirs. That's just what happens when your topic is cheap, daft, superficial, uninteresting, greedy, vain, calculating, manipulative, drug addicted and deceitful.
The affected voice and mannerisms, it just had me cringe over and over. It even made this difficult to watch at times, as did the blatant narcissism. Personally, I never thought her attractive, there was nothing subtle or magical about her, it was a hype I never understood. In this documentary, Anne Nicole Smith comes off as a sadly desperate wannabe - a Marilyn Monroe wannabe, for one, which she was far from. Monroe was authentically goodlooking and actually quite bright (I've read excerpts of her diaries), and had an air of mystery and class and depth. Anne was none of these things. It's like comparing diamonds to gaudy strass. Even Smith's sexually abusive childhood was a lie (to imitate Monroe, I guess), which is a slap in the face to people with real such childhoods.
And the phone calls with Marshall? Entertaining for us to listen in, perhaps, but who recorded them and why? (Does anybody else wonder, I wonder?) Some interactions with the old man and Smith's young son felt borderline abusive to me. The kid calling this very old man "dad" felt off and wrong somehow, like it's all acted and the kid is forced to play along with this folie a deux, this theatre. And no, I'm not even that biased against young bombshells hooking up with billionaire geriatrics (love comes in many shapes), I'm simply biased against these two unstable individuals. Also, I never understood why she wanted HALF of Marshall's money. Couldn't she have settled for a few million, wait what, a million?
To people still insisting she was a "great mom": women who take methadone and god knows what else in the eight month of their pregnancy aren't exemplary mothers, nor are those who push their shy sons to go on their narcissist reality shows.
As for the story with her own real dad (no spoilers), if true (which apparently one never knows with Smith), that IS a sad story, yet my God was she naive!
I'm giving this a fair seven though, because the documentary itself is well made. It's also is a good reminder of what fame can do to the unprepared. But if the makers' intention was to make her more likeable, for me they failed, though by no fault of theirs. That's just what happens when your topic is cheap, daft, superficial, uninteresting, greedy, vain, calculating, manipulative, drug addicted and deceitful.