(2000)
1.5
Karl Williams
As expected, Isn't She Great? contains the crackling dialogue touches of screenwriter Paul Rudnick, but the film fails to be the outrageous biography that a larger-than-life character such as notorious writer Jacqueline Susann (Bette Midler) deserves. Susann's well-chronicled battles with addictions to drugs, alcohol, and sex would seem to make her the ideal subject for a film; indeed, Isn't She Great? was preceded by a more straightforward television bio two years earlier, Scandalous Me: The Jacqueline Susann Story (1998). Director Andrew Bergman, usually so facile with comic material and a former comedy screenwriter himself, shoots for a sentimentalized version of Susann's story, however, focusing on her long-term relationship with her supportive-through-it-all husband, producer Irving Mansfield (Nathan Lane). While Midler and Lane do their energetic best to sell the material, the film simplifies and glosses over too many of the most riveting and dark chapters in its subject's life, resulting in a cloying misfire that's too broadly played and light in tone. The irony of Isn't She Great? is that Susann herself would've certainly preferred more sleaze and dirt dishing.
Isn't She Great on AllMovie
Isn't She Great (2000)
