Isn't She Great (2000)

It is a performances centric movie

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Blistering performances.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Middle-aged women of the world unite -- and watch this movie! The real-life story of Jackie Susann's meteoric and incredibly unlikely rise to fame is much more compelling than any of the sexploitation novels she wrote.Well into her 40s, Susann had three dreadful strikes against her -- her only child was autistic and institutionalized, her acting career had flopped and then she got cancer. She had ground out a novel about the sex-and-drugs peccadilloes of showbiz types, which was considered junk by any and all established literary standards. But Jackie had a shrewd, intuitive sense of what turned ordinary people on, a flamboyant flair for promoting herself plus relentless energy and ambition. She achieved about a decade of glorious success as top best-selling author until she succumbed to a recurrence of cancer in her 50s.If you like this story line, you'll probably like the movie. It's handled in a high-camp manner, with very broad performances by Bette Midler and the rest. Midler and Lane, who plays her kindly and rather pathetic hanger-on of a husband, are wonderfully funny playing a couple with absolutely no class at all. If you were a kid in the 1960s, as I was, you'll probably enjoy Bette wafting around in outrageous outfits and dos.My only criticism is that this very comic style makes the movie play like an extended, patched-together sequence of comedy sketches, rather than a movie. Also, to enjoy the movie, I think it helps if you're a New Yorker. In NYC, eccentricity has traditionally been not just tolerated but encouraged. Many people from other more staid parts of the country come to New York for this reason -- Susann herself was a New York transplant from Philadelphia. Also, NYC attracts lots of wildly ambitious people vying to make it in the worlds of showbiz, the arts, publishing, finance, etc. So,as goofy as Midler's portrait is, it seemed endearingly familiar to me.

It's no mystery why this movie was a flop. I've watched it more than once & I never feel like I'm watching a film about author Jacqueline Susann. Just a movie starring Bette Midler (in a dark wig) playing Bette Midler, or a standard Midler character. It's obvious Midler did no research into Susann to portray her. There is plenty of footage around (game shows, talk shows, etc.) where Midler could have studied her a bit. She adopts none of her mannerisms, speech, anything. I think Midler's ego & persona are so gigantic, she just isn't equipped to play a real person. She was fine in "The Rose", but she wasn't actually playing Janis Joplin, just an over-the-top singer loosely based on her. I don't know why she even bothered with this?? I don't know enough about Irving Mansfield to make an opinion of whether Nathan Lane's characterization was effective or not, but as a whole his character was watchable. Stockard Channing was very good as friend Florence Maybelle (a hybrid of different people). But I would have preferred to see Susann's friendship with Doris Day displayed instead. You know a movie's in trouble when the plot's so thin, they toss in a useless fashion show. Another silly aspect of the movie is that the producers tried to make it look like a movie based on one of Susann's novels (Dionne Warwick theme song, bright jelly bean colors, etc.) This is like a slap in the face to Susann who hated the movie versions of her books. I give it three stars for costumes, sets, automobiles, Stockard Channing, & it's attempt at camp value.

I really do not understand y everyone i meet says this movie was horrible. I thought it was hilarious. It was not the best movie I ever saw but it was definitely not the worst. It had some incredibly funny lines and the cast, especially Bette Midler was fantastic. The movie is not set in modern day life which is probably y so many people think that it is so out of the ordinary. And it is based on the true life of the writer of Vally of the Dolls. The actually events in the movie might seem unrealistic to some people but that is what actually happened. They did have a retarded son who they practically never saw which is y in the movie u Practically never see him. I thought the movie was great and people need to give it a chance. It is not a golden globe movie but it is definitely a feel good movie that can surly make you laugh out loud.

Based on the life of 60s failed-actress-turned-authoress, (and I say "authoress" and not "writer")Jacquline Susann, this snooze-fest is totally for those camp-loving followers of the Divine Miss M. The best thing that can be said about it are the 60s costumes and automobiles! Bette Midler portrays Susann as Bette Midler portraying Susann. Nathan Lane is her husband-on-a-leash Irving Mansfield who, as played by Lane was simply along for the ride. Lane is sadly miscast. Let's face it, he's just too emotional to portray anyone who would sleep with Susann. (I can't but help remember the late great Truman Capote who described Susann on a talk show as a "truck driver in drag"). The only saving grace in this mess is Stockard Channing as a fictional rich friend of Susann's and you can tell she's playing it for all it's not-worth. This movie shows up every so often on cable and may I suggest if nothing else is on, turn off the TV.