Reviews

Some funny moments and strong cast, but ultimately a disappointing story with little depth or interest.

Jacqueline Susann may have been a larger than life character. Her sexually explicit novels about the dirt on the glitterati of stage and movies may have had cultural importance. As a colorful self-promoter, Susann and her husband and publicist, Irving Mansfield, forever changed the fuddy-duddy taboos that banned certain topics and styles from mainline publishing. In a sense, she was a powerful emetic breaking loose the realities that plugged up our collective plumbing. We credit Bette Midler for capturing some of the larger than life brashness as this other "Jackie". Unfortunately, the story offered little more than a series of quick, magazine style snippets of interesting events and anecdotes carried completely by Midler’s charisma rather than dramatic tension. Maybe, the film was too closely based on the New Yorker article by an editor of one of Jackie’s books, Michael Korda. Despite some funny lines and sequences, the whole thing looks like a festival of fluff and color rather than a story about unique people fighting against great odds. There is nothing wrong with fluff and color, but the character of Susann as presented in the movie left much room for deeper exploration and conflict.

The real life Jackie struggled with breast cancer and the real and imagined stigmas attached to its ravages in the Sixties and Seventies. She made her mark knowing that her health was deteriorating. She wrote books about what she experienced with little censorship, though perhaps some embellishment. We also get to know something about her husband’s struggle with inadequacy and a sense of personal failure as Jackie rises to celebrity status far beyond that which he will ever achieve. He goes from being the breadwinner to not being able to afford the jewels his wife deserves. Still, all of the emotion and insight of a profound character conflict that could have been harnessed from that sub-theme is completely missed.

Even the powerful cast, which includes Nathan Lane as Irving Mansfield and John Cleese as Jackie’s publisher cannot make up for the lack of power and dimension that the actual people must have had. Isn't She Great teaches us once again that a movie based on "true events", funny lines, and great acting talent is far from a movie based on "true characters", funny lines, and great acting talent.

CinemaSense.Com

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