Anna Nicole

This film was not geniously architected, but it portrays Vicky/ Anna in a honorable way, and the viewer never see an obscene image from the beginning to the end of this piece. We all knew that Anna Nicole had a reputation to be a sex, drugs and rock & roll abuser, but, through the scenes it's well notorious the unconditional love that she had for her son, Daniel. He was always her light, the star that shine in her life. And it's factual too, that she did the best she could, the best that she had learned herself, since she was alone throughout her young adult life and motherhood. Yes, she was over the top, and not politically correct, but that character/ personality aggregated to her overwhelming appearance made her who she was: the desirable, yet suffering with inner trauma, 21st century Marylin Monroe. The director made an excellent job with this biography movie, showing more the personality, the human being, without focusing too much in the scandals and on the negative side of her life. Over all, I was expecting worse and have a slightly good surprise. And this goes into the light.

Anna Nicole (2013)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Made-for-TV movie from Lifetime about the life of Anna Nicole Smith (Agnes Bruckner) who we see as a young single mother to her marriage to billionaire J. Howard Marshall (Martin Landau) and of course through her troubled drug use. ANNA NICOLE is nicely directed by Mary Harron and it features some good performances but in the end there are just way too many problems for it to work as well as it needed to. For starters, the film seems pretty rushed trying to fit all of Smith's story into a 90-minute running time as we bounce around quite a bit and the film never really seems to focus on anything. Another problem are a few gimmicks that are used throughout the picture including a really silly one where the young Smith sees a "future" version of herself. At the same time, the older Smith seeing a "younger" version of herself has no impact either. I'd also say that the movie doesn't work with the silly narration, which is coming from the dead Smith looking back over her life. With that said, Bruckner does a nice job in the lead role even though she never really looks or acts like the real person. For the most part I thought she did a good job at showing a troubled person. Landau easily steals the picture as the elderly man who falls in love with the stripper he meets and Cary Elwes is also good as his son. Adam Goldberg does a nice job in the role of Howard K. Stern and Virginia Madsen is good as Smith's mother, although the screenplay really doesn't do many favors for the character. Harron does a nice job at keeping the film moving at a good pace but there's just too many issues with the screenplay for this to be a complete winner. It also doesn't help that Smith isn't all that sympathetic. Still, for a made-for-TV film this here isn't too bad as a quick time killer.

So much was left out. When i first saw it on and saw that brief moment when she met her daughter's father. That should've have been longer. There is no detail about their relationship cuz clearly it was more then a one time thing otherwise the custody battle after her death wouldn't have happened. Her weight loss journey wasn't documented enough, hell her weight gain wasn't talked about. Absolutely no details of the court case was really given. And that's all public records.

Biography films just isn't for lifetime.

While I am not really overly familiar with the details about the life that Anna Nicole Smith was living, then I will say that the movie "Anna Nicole" actually managed to put together a rather nicely told story. But whether how true the movie is to the actual story of Anna Nicole Smith, I have no clue.

Agnes Bruckner really carried this movie nicely, and did a great job in portraying the iconic and legendary model Anna Nicole Smith.

No sense in going into details about the storyline here, as it is a filmed biography of sorts about Anna Nicole Smith.

Of course this movie is mostly appealing to those who were fan of Anna Nicole (or those who still are), but still, for someone impartial then it provided good enough entertainment, just don't expect to be blown away.

I will say that the performances were generally good all round, and people did contribute well to the movie and their respective characters.

Anna Nicole Smith's story is an interesting one, actually. How a person can go from being a person from a small place and end up being known world wide, but also showing the bad things that comes along with the burden of fame. For that, I think that the movie "Anna Nicole" deserves to be watched just once at least.

TV biopics rarely have the sort of depth that a feature has. I was looking forward to this one because I've always admired and enjoyed Director Mary Harron's work. But not even a really good cast and director could make this film any deeper than its subject matter. In all fairness, there wasn't that much to say without speculating -- which wasn't really the purpose of the film.

Fresh on the heels of the amazing HBO documentary called "Love, Marilyn," I was anxious to see how Anna Nicole's story would unfold, given that Marilyn Monroe was such an obvious inspiration for Anna Nicole. Certainly, if anyone in this century embodied sex appeal in some of the same ways as Marilyn, it would be Anna. However, unlike Marilyn - there was really never any attempt apparent that she took acting very seriously as Marilyn did.

I'd be interested to know how much Lifetime producers may have interfered with the production of Anna Nicole because that would be a sure indicator of a less than stellar production to follow.

I wasn't expecting all that much, given the subject matter - but I was at least expecting a more enlightening rendering of it. It's not bad enough not to see -- but it was nothing that merits seeing again, for sure.