Hey folks, Harry here with Marty McFly's look at next week's release of... ISN'T SHE GREAT... the latest film for all you Bette Midler fans out there....
Hey Harry, Marty McFly here. I have just seen the new Andrew Bergman film Isn't She Great. No that is not a punctuation error, I meant to leave out the question mark. I'll get to that later.
It's about the author of Valley of The Dolls, Jacqueline Susann and her relationship with her husband and agent Irving Mansfield. The film is not supposed to be an accurate account of her life. It deals with her quest to become famous, her struggle to get the book published, her battle with breast cancer, of which she eventually died, and her struggle with an autistic son. But its a comedy.
The film stars Bette Midler as Susann and Nathan Lane as Mansfield, and the relationship between them is the heart of the story. Bette does a good job at playing the same feisty Jewish woman she has played in many movies and since I really have no idea of what the real Susann was like, I have nothing to compare her performance to. Frankly, I had no interest in this woman as I walked into the movie and from what I've heard, the writer Paul Rudnick really had to liven things up because if it was too true to her life the film would have ended up more like Valley Of The Dolls.
Coming out, I have no newfound interest in her life either. The film has its funny sometimes downright hysterical moments but it is mostly just one one-liner after another. Bergman has written some classics like The In-Laws and Blazing Saddles. He also directed and wrote some not-so-classics like Honeymoon In Vegas, Striptease, and It Could Happen To You. This is the first time Bergman has directed a film he did not write and though Rudnick is a great writer, he just doesn't come up with anything special here. Even at a little less than 90 minutes, the films gets tiresome after awhile.
Lane plays Mansfield as a husband who would do anything for his wife and worships the ground she walks on, but since Susann seemed to be such a bitch, the audience never really sees why he loves her. He says "Isn't She Great" throughout the film but since he already knows she is, he isn't saying it as a question. Thetas why the ? is left out of the title. The cast tries hard, including David Hyde Pierce as Susann's editor, John Cleese as her publisher, and Stockard Channing as her best friend. Still, I can't really recommend the film. It does have a great score though, done by the legendary Burt Bacharach. Well, that's about it.
I'll see ya in the future!
Marty
