Review of The Rose (1979) by Matty S — 28 Oct 2013

If I am going to be honest I thought at first I would hate this film with a passion but sometimes you can come away with a totally different view of a movie despite the fact its a touch cliched in parts.

The Rose is of course lossely vased on the life of Janis Joplin but once you get past that obstacle the film is very well directed by Mark Rydell and contains a brilliant performance from Bette Midler as Rose.

Midler is an aquired taste I know but she is simply amazing here as the fragile singer wholatches on to men for comfort and when that fails truns to booze and drugs to ease her pain.

It helps that the supporting cast is uniformly fine with Alan Bateas as Rose's hard pressed manager who tries to keep her on the straight andnarrow and Frederick Forrest as Roses love interest who offers her a way out only to be reppelled by Roses lifestyle.

Of course films like Ray and Walk the line have done this stuff as well but something about Rydells film sets it apart from those films which feel like disease of the week movie which played on American TV during the 80s.

Rydell knows his film is bordering on parody but thanks to a strong cental perfromance from Midler he keeps the film the right side of cheeesy.

An unexpected delight then and a film which trounces a lot of modern music biopics.