Big Drama, Little Trauma In 'Isn't She Great'

Jacqueline Susann Story Has Larger-Than-Life Characters, Little Emotion

"Isn't she great?" is something you hear uttered at a cocktail party about the hostess' best friend -- a bawdy but stylishly dressed woman who talks of former boyfriends and foreign policy all in the same breath.

"Isn't she great?" is what your cousin offers in place of an apology after his "I'm too young to be 50" mother just asked you four highly personal questions about your sex life as you sit for lunch at the city's chicest restaurant.

"Isn't she great?" is a rhetorical question asked about a woman putting on a brave face while battling a deadly disease.

"Isn't She Great" is the name of the zealous biopic of Jacqueline Susann, author of "Valley of The Dolls." After meeting the big-screen version of the talentless but driven wannabe-star -- played to the hilt by Bette Midler -- you feel as if you've just spent two hours with that bawdy woman at the cocktail party, the inappropriate aunt and that brave, dying woman.

Based on a post-mortem New Yorker article about Susann, "Isn't She Great" takes the same tone about its subjects as its subjects did about life. I say "subjects" because the film is just as much about Susann as it is about her adoring husband and manager Irving Mansfield, played by Nathan Lane.

It's a movie of big characters, lots of laughs and almost a disregard for the couple's traumas.

Susann is an out-of-work actress in New York when the movie audience first meets her, and she is desperate to have her name up in lights. She then meets Mansfield, who is willing to use all of his show-business know-how and to feed her ego and his personal affections to appease her restless soul.

After several failed attempts to make his love a household name, Mansfield comes up with the idea for Susann to write a novel. The trashy tale of sex-crazed, pill-popping starlets is rejected by just about ever publishing house in New York before being picked up by Henry Marcus (John Cleese) and uptight editor Michael Hastings (David Hyde Pierce).

The overwhelming success of "Valley of The Dolls" is marred by two secret tragedies that the couple keeps: Susann's battle with breast cancer and their autistic son living in an upstate facility. But the audience is only told of the private anguish Susann and Mansfield must have gone through but not really show. Because, like a guest at a party, our eavesdropping is tolerated, but we aren't invited to join the most private conversations.

Midler and Lane are enthusiastic and funny as Susann and Mansfield without being cartoonish, as are the supporting cast of Cleese, Hyde Pierce and Stockard Channing.

Overall, the movie is funny and entertaining, much like the parties frequented by Susann and Mansfield. But if you're looking for an in-depth portrayal of a woman desperate for fame while fighting for her life, "Isn't She Great" just isn't.

Universal Pictures' "Isn't She Great" opens nationwide Jan. 28.

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