'Notorious Bettie Page' is half-dressed homage to pinup queen
By: North County Times - | ∞
B- "The Notorious Bettie Page"
Starring: Gretchen Mol, Lili Taylor, Jonathan M. Woodward, David Strathairn
Director: Mary Harron
Studio: Picturehouse
Rated: R (for nudity, sexual content and some language)
RT: 100 minutes
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A somewhat saucy but also curiously tame biopic of the '50s pinup fave, "The Notorious Bettie Page" is more interested in the what than the why.
The story follows Page, played by Gretchen Mol, from her Tennessee youth as a churchgoing country girl to her heyday as a magazine model wearing little or no clothes. In her few years as model and sometime actress, Page became one of the more popular models of the era, though the publications she posed for were sold mostly in shadowy city stores.
Even as Page became famous ---- then notorious ---- she maintained her country charm and friendly demeanor, and to some degree her innocence. Like Marilyn Monroe, Page immersed herself in acting theory with the dream of becoming a serious actress. Unlike Monroe, Page could never come close to the transition.
"The Notorious Bettie Page" pokes some fun at the mores of the era, and spends some time in government hearings, where the work of Page and others involved in "sexual deviancy" is sternly criticized.
The film intrigues, and tells us more about Page than we knew before, but doesn't thoroughly explore either its main character or the underlying psychological issues of the times. "The Notorious Bettie Page" provides a sympathetic, vaguely admiring and slightly satirical surface look at Page's life, and though we see all of Page and then some, we still don't quite know her.
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