Review

Review Date: 7-May-06
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Junk

The Notorious Bettie Page (2006)

I delayed writing about "The Notorious Bettie Page" because it fits into a class of movie I tend to purge as soon as I've watched (i.e., a waste of time). The title and modest buzz surrounding star Gretchen Mol suggests that the movie is a biography of '50s pinup queen Bettie Page. Yet the chronic detachment of filmmaker Mary Harron prevents it from being an in-depth look at a real person or even a story about a character worth knowing. With aggravating nonchalance (and clunky black-and-white cinematography), Harron touches upon such issues as Page's molestation by her father, gang rape by strangers, abusive first marriage, and subsequent boyfriends without speculating how they reflected or shaped her history or personality. I'm not even sure Harron means for viewers like me to ponder how Page's experience of the "normal" world (family, respectable employment) was twisted and unsatisfactory while her experience of the "deviant" world (pornography) was comfortable and rewarding. The movie merely depicts her as a belle from Tennessee who was smart but naive and wandered through life in a fog. This may have been so, but selling these qualities in a motion picture requires a conviction which Harron lacks and Mol can't supply on her own. Their heroine is tediously unlifelike, particularly when you consider that she eventually gives up posing in the buff to devote herself to Christ, a move which suggests serious baggage when paired with her sexual past.

If Harron envisions "The Notorious Bettie Page" as something other than a biography, it isn't clear what this might be. There are a number of humorous moments related to Page's profession, particularly her forays into bondage (gee, people were square in the '50s!), but they don't make the film a comedy. At least not a successful one, since the lighter aspects don't jibe with the vague but obviously dark background of Page's life. There's also a reference to a Senate investigation into the corrupting effects of pornography on America's youth, but this is summarily dismissed as an incident that might have significance for Page or the culture in which she played a part. As for supporting characters, Chris Bauer and Lili Taylor are one-dimensional as genial peddlers of smut, and Jared Harris just manages to stand out as an eccentric photographer. These people, like Page herself, aren't vibrant or compelling enough to give the picture a soul. In the end it's like a nudie postcard that offers superficial kicks but is easily tossed aside.

Copyright © 2006 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.