This was one of the harder films for me to review; there is so much I enjoyed about the film and yet so much more that I found fault with. In the end The Notorious Bettie Page is a very good film that had a chance to be truly great. The film has been playing for a couple of weeks in limited release and tomorrow gets pushed into wide release; we’ve got the review…
The Notorious Bettie Page
3 & 1/2 Stars
For those of us too young to remember Bettie Page was the pin-up girl of a generation whose popularity rivaled (and in many circles eclipsed) that of movie icon Marilyn Monroe. For many she was the icon of her age. The new film tries to capture snapshots of her life dealing mostly with her career in front of the camera and takes a look at the young southern gal who would become The Notorious Bettie Page.
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Bettie Page (played as an adult by Gretchen Mol) is a nice religious girl who survived some horrific incidents in her early life including sexual abuse by her father, a sexual attack by a group of strangers, and an abusive husband. Somehow Bettie survives and keeps that upper lip and spirit high. After leaving her husband she finds some work modeling and quickly becomes the pin-up girl for a generation. She also begins posing for a series of bondage photos and films which become the focus of a Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency (which includes David Strathairn in an interesting casting move considering his last film).
I loved Gretchen Mol’s performance of Bettie and if there’s any justice in this world she’ll be making the award circuit at the end of the year. She infuses Bettie a vulnerability and strong character that allow you to care what happens to this woman. From her first to last moment on screen she owns the role and this film. The film is also filled with good supporting performances from Chris Bauer and Lili Taylor as bondage photographers Irving and Paula Klaw, and Sarah Paulson as then unknown photographer Bunny Yeager.
The choice writer/director Mary Harron (American Psycho) makes is to present Bettie’s life rather than judge it. The awful events of her youth are hinted at but not shown, and the effects of them do not seem to linger on our protagonist. This Bettie Page is just looking for fun and enjoys being playful in front of the camera with what are “just pictures” after all. It paints no one as a hero or as a villain instead choosing to present a portrait of her life. This allows a film that deals with both pornography and reborn Christianity to not be preachy, but at the same time misses moments, effects, and consequences that should be explored further.
Sadly Harron makes some mistakes that do detract from the film. The first is the switch from the beautiful black and white to color in scenes which take place in Miami or in the woods during photo shoots. There are not timed well (it’s nearly an hour into the film first occurs) and the effect removes your attention from the story to focus on the reasons for this radical shift. Because of this in the end we are left with a film that doesn’t quite match. More of a problem are the many odd tonal shifts of the film. Overall the film is upbeat, yet you get scenes that hint at real darkness and issues that should scar or even destroy a person yet the next scene is back to the merriment of life again. The choice of cramming most of Bettie’s life into the film creates problems as there isn’t time enough to deal with the effects of those darker days in her past and so they are all simply shown, glossed over, and we move onto what comes next.
At the same however she finds just the right way to recreate the look of the time period and the vintage shots and films Bettie Page was so much a part of. There are many clever devices used during the film including some moving covers of Bettie’s photo shoots. The loving way in which they are reproduced and obvious joy of Bettie in those situations may turn off some viewers who have strong moral objections to pornography. If the film has any one message it would be pornography (like firearms) isn’t good or evil though it can be misused.
There is much to celebrate here including an award caliber performance by Gretchen Mol. The faults of the film, all of which can be laid at the feet of director Mary Harron and editor Tricia Cooke, deflate the movie and hold it back from what appears to be a film that everything it needed to be great. In the end we know a little more about Bettie Page’s life but not that much more about the woman herself and how the events of her life touched her and changed her – which for a biopic film is inexcusable. Yet even with such issues the film is still worth taking a look at and enjoying for what it is; I just wish it had been more.