In a word, no. This candy-colored, tart-tongued riff on the life and career of defiantly trashy novelist Jacqueline Susann (Bette Midler) contains several profanely amusing moments, but they don't add up to much. Based on a
New Yorker
magazine piece by Michael Korda, one of Susann's editors, the film actually feels constrained by the need to stay somewhere in the vicinity of the facts of her life; it might have been better off as pure fiction about a Jacqueline Susann-like novelist. The milestones are there: Susann's career as
a second-string actress; her marriage to Irving Mansfield (Nathan Lane), her manager and tireless booster; the writing of
Valley o...
Released:
2000
Rated:
R
Length:
90 mins