Anna Nicole: star déchue

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.

Agnes Brucker is beautiful. More beautiful than Anna Nicole for sure. The prosthetic breasts they add on to her are actually quite good and convincing. I was pretty impressed by that. Agnes' performance here can be measured a couple of different ways: was it good on its own merits and does it pass the George C. Scott test? If you take out the "playing a real person" aspect, her performance was perfectly adequate for your average Lifetime drivel. But if you judge her by whether she accurately captured Anna Nicole, then no she did not. She seemed more often than not like a caricature. Not that Anna Nicole was anything deeper than what we saw. I highly doubt she was. Still, people are people and even the likes of the Kardashians or Anna Nicole Smith don't act off camera like they do on. So when you're portraying a person like that and you're playing them based solely on stuff you've seen on camera (including interviews), you're not going to have a fully formed idea of who they were.

Anyway, the movie is not very good. The gimmick where her older/younger self appears to her is cheesy and laugh-inducing. I think doing a bio for a woman famous for taking her clothes off is kind of hard to do on a network where you can't show nudity. Perhaps an R rated movie would have at least had more cheesecake to admire. Anyway, if you're a fan of Agnes Bruckner, check it out. She's in every scene and most of the time wearing very little.

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.

I personally loved the movie! I did notice a similarity to 'Norma Jean & Marilyn' with the talking to the older and younger self so I understood it. Agnes did a superb job!!! I have become a fan! And the haunting rendition of FAME by Amy Gerhartz was to die for. Too bad it wasn't used in the actual movie. The ending was so sad. I can't help but feel sorry for Anna. So many people used her in her life, even her own family. The only person she could truly rely on was Daniel and she was devastated to of lost him. It would of been nice if they did this as a Mini-Series instead of a 2 hour movie. All the actors were truly extraordinary and I definitely thought this movie was WAY better than LIZ & DICK, which was a flop.