Review of The Notorious Bettie Page (2006) by Miki K — 11 Aug 2011

The Notorious Bettie Page directed by American Psycho director, Mary Harron is an interesting, but imperfect attempt at capturing the life of the first pinup queen Bettie Page to the screen. I felt the film lacked something that has made other biopics so good.

The film is good and has a lot of solid performances, but the fact is, it lacked something to truly make it a good biopic. I felt that considering the subject matter, they could have made a truly unique biopic about this pinup sensation.

The film is a good effort, but it could've used a bit more substance. The actress chosen to play Bettie Page, Gretchen Mol is perfect for the part. The films problem is that it touches only the surface of who Bettie Page was.

The film doesn't truly go into vivid detail, like most biopics. The filmmakers left a lot of material out of the story, and just keep what is known about Bettie Page, her illicit modeling career. The rest seems to be left out, we never truly find out how she was brought up, and such.

Those would have been things that they could've put in the film to make it a more rounded biopic. Fortunately there's a phenomenal cast that graces this film and they each bring something interesting to the screen.

But like I said, the film lacks substance and effective development to really make this an interesting and memorable biopic. But this film is still worth checking out, for what it is; it's a good try at bringing Bettie Page's life to the screen.