Film #4 of 2010
Bettie Page, one of America's most famous pin-up girls who became notorious for the content of a lot of her pictures probably has a really interesting story to tell: about her childhood, what led her to choose modeling as a profession and then what made her go off the deep end to go full throttle with pictures depicting sado-masochism and role playing, among other things. Unfortunately, The Notorious Bettie Page completely glosses over almost all of her development and spends the better part of an hour showing her various photography sessions, and that's really about it.
Gretchen Mol looks the part as Bettie Page, and if she was truly a wide eyed innocent throughout her entire career who always looked at everything with surprise and wonder, then she nailed the part. The film was stylish and entertaining on a shallow level, I suppose, but when it ended I was like, "Okay, and then what?" which is pretty much what I was saying to myself the entire film. I had heard really good things about this movie, but I just didn't see it, frankly, which is too bad. I suppose there are definitely times when it's best to pick up a book to learn about someone's life rather than hope for a decent biopic, and The Notorious Bettie Page fits that to a "T". Truly disappointing.
2 stars out of 5
1 comment:
I completely agree with you, Cinemaphile. I saw that in the theaters when it came out and being a fan of BP I was pretty excited for it. I left the theater feeling quite disappointed. It was OK, but I thought a biopic of her life could have turned out much better.
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