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Isn't she great

Threat advisory: Elevated - Significant risk of entertaining activities

Movie propaganda

Talent isn't everything.

From the very beginning, best-selling novelist Jacqueline Susann (Bette Midler) simply wanted her place in the spotlight. With no agent and no one calling for auditions, she scraped by with residuals from the occasional radio jingle, television commercial and game show appearance. Still, with every failure - and there were plenty - she remained undeterred in her quest for fame. A friend once told her that "Talent isn't everything", and for no person was this more true.

Manager and publicist Irving Mansfield (Nathan Lane) knew he was the one who could make Jackie's dreams come true. He also knew that he was in love with the flamboyant actress. It was a relationship made in show business heaven.

With Jackie's career going nowhere, and fast, Irving hit upon an idea. A crazy idea, but an idea which just might make Jacqueline Susann a household name. She would write a book. Never mind the fact that she had never written before. She would write about what she knew: the crazy, steamy lives of drug-addicted, sex-craved movie stars.

With her best friend Florence (Stockard Channing) by her side for inspiration and Irving at her side for advice, encouragement and deliveries of hot pastrami, Jackie put pen to paper, with a passion that was all-consuming... and a vocabulary that would shock a sailor.

The result was Valley of the dolls, an inside look at the highs and lows of showbiz as told by someone who had experienced it first-hand. According to Irving, it was "Like Gone with the wind, only filthy."

Persons of interest

Bette Midler .... Jacqueline Susann
Nathan Lane .... Irving Mansfield
Stockard Channing .... Florence Maybelle
David Hyde Pierce .... Michael Hastings
John Cleese .... Henry Marcus
John Larroquette .... Maury Manning
Amanda Peet .... Debbie
Jeffrey Ross .... Shecky
Christopher McDonald .... Brad Bradburn
Paul Benedict .... Professor Brainiac
Dina Spybey .... Bambi Madison
Pauline Little .... Leslie Barnett
Mal Z Lawrence .... Mort
Adam Heller .... Howie
Ellen David .... Sylvia
Michael Korda .... Author
Paul Rudnick .... Screenwriter
Andrew Bergman .... Director

Cinematic intelligence sources

Studios and distributors:

Universal Pictures

Intelligence analyst

Special Agent Matti

Theatrical report

You go girl!

Isn't she great is on for the pretentious and the gossipmongers among you. As a biography it reveals some interesting facets of Jackie's life, but it's also a comedy, so it brings in elements of The divine Miss M. Bold & brash, this flick revels in its outrageous heroine and her outrageous approach to life. Unfortunately, it's stuck in reality so there's only so far it can go as a drama; the documentary nature of its roots never allows the story to truly flourish as a feature film.

And, I say, ungrammatically beginning a sentence with a conjunction, that's a shame because Isn't she great has a lot of great stuff in it. Bette Midler is suitably wild, Nathan Lane is suitably subdued (in an over the top kind of way), Stockard Channing is a hoot, David Hyde Pierce is anal retentive. The dialogue runs and runs and runs like a speeding locomotive. The period locations and costumes are outrageous all by themselves. But, ungrammatically beginning another sentence with another conjunction, it never quite gets off the ground.

Think back to The People vs Larry Flynt, the biography about the porn publisher, an outrageous character who lived life his own way no matter who got in the way. The whole film was hard-edged, from the script to the cinematography. Isn't she great should be the same but it is overlaid with a soft-focus mentality that doesn't let you get into the heart of the story or the characters. It's as if a lawyer did the final draft, taking out anything even slightly derogatory (ie interesting) or malicious.

If you're a Bette Midler fan (not the Beaches kind, the For the boys kind) then you'll have some fun with Isn't she great. If you're a Jackie fan, you'll be seeing this anyway to see how well they did it. If you're none of the above you'll probably give it a miss, which will not be a huge loss on your part.

Oh, yes... there are some incredibly funny bits.