Bettie Page was the "pin-up queen of the universe" in the early 1950s. By today's standards, the photos and films for which she posed were incredibly tame; by the standards of her time, they were shocking. Page did fully nude photos, and posed in bondage attire -- leather boots and corsets, teasingly positioned riding crop, and so on.
Bettie is played in this movie by Gretchen Mol, who is the best thing about the movie, and who perfectly captures Page's most remarkable characteristic -- her utter lack of shame and embarassment. In none of the surviving images of Page do we see anything but a woman who is enjoying what she's doing, and perfectly happy to be doing it. "Oh, why not, they're just pictures," says Mol's Bettie when first approached to pose; when someone asks if she's at all bothered by having to wear those outfits and spank other women, she chirps, "Oh no, I enjoy acting very much."
Unfortuately, Mol's excellent performance is surrounded by a movie that's wildly uneven in tone, often landing too close to camp; Chris Bauer and Lili Taylor, as porn impresarios Irving and Paula Klaw, are especially guilty here (Taylor's Noo Yawk accent is a disaster), and David Strathairn as Senator Estes Kefauver seems to be playing the comic flipside of his recent role as Edward R. Murrow.
Several years ago, Gretchen Mol was famously declared by Vanity Fair to be the next Hollywood "It Girl," but a few bad film choices kept her career from taking off the way everyone had expected. Her work here, I hope, will put her back on people's short lists and land her some decent parts. She certainly proves herself worthy of them; as wildly inconsistent as Harron's script and direction are, Mol is always a delight.
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