IMDb > Isn't She Great (2000)
Isn't She Great
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Isn't She Great (2000) More at IMDbPro »

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Isn't She Great (2000) -- Open-ended Trailer from MCA

Overview

User Rating:
4.9/10   1,357 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 4% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Andrew Bergman
Writers (WGA):
Michael Korda (article)
Paul Rudnick (screenplay)
Contact:
View company contact information for Isn't She Great on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
28 January 2000 (USA) more
Tagline:
Talent isn't everything.
Plot:
An unsuccessful over-the-top actress becomes a successful over-the-top authoress in this biography of Jacqueline Susann... more | add synopsis
Awards:
1 nomination more
NewsDesk:
(5 articles)
Betty Draper Loves White Fang
 (From FilmExperience. 21 July 2009, 5:40 PM, PDT)

Movie Reviews: Drowning Mona
 (From Studio Briefing - Film News. 3 March 2000)

User Comments:
Larger than Life; who else but the Divine Miss M more (60 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Bette Midler ... Jacqueline Susann

Nathan Lane ... Irving Mansfield

Stockard Channing ... Florence Maybelle

David Hyde Pierce ... Michael Hastings

John Cleese ... Henry Marcus

John Larroquette ... Maury Manning

Amanda Peet ... Debbie
Terrence Ross ... Radio actor

Jeffrey Ross ... Shecky

Christopher McDonald ... Brad Bradburn (as Christopher MacDonald)
Paul Benedict ... Prof. Brainiac

Dina Waters ... Bambi Madison (as Dina Spybey)
Pauline Little ... Leslie Barnett

William Hill ... Passerby
Mal Z. Lawrence ... Mort
more
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Additional Details

Also Known As:
Ist sie nicht großartig? (Germany)
more
MPAA:
Rated R for language.
Runtime:
95 min
Country:
USA | UK | Germany | Japan
Language:
English
Color:
Color
Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS
Filming Locations:
Hudson, Québec, Canada more

Fun Stuff

Goofs:
Anachronisms: Jacqueline Susann watches people waiting in line at the Radio City Music Hall to see Once Is Not Enough (1975). Susann died the year before this movie was released. more
Quotes:
[About a necklace]
Florence Maybelle: If a man ever bought that for me, not only would I have sex with him, but I would ENJOY it!
more
Movie Connections:
References I Remember Mama (1948) more
Soundtrack:
Here We Go Again more

FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
8 out of 10 people found the following comment useful.
Larger than Life; who else but the Divine Miss M, 26 April 2004
Author: george.schmidt (george.schmidt@hbo.com) from fairview, nj

ISN'T SHE GREAT (2000) ** Bette Midler, Nathan Lane, Stockard Channing, David Hyde Pierce, John Cleese, Amanda Peet. Before there was Jackie Collins and Amazon.com there was Jacqueline Susann. That is prior to the subgenre of 'trashy romance' novels found in your neighborhood pharmacy and the glut that is now the conglomerate superbookstore –i.e. marketing and focus groups for the masses! – there was Jacqueline Susann, whose bawdy, vulgar and tasteless novels were ultimately candy for the average American reader who gobbled her tomes faster than she could churn them out. In Andrew Bergman's look at the queen of the acquired taste, who else could portray a larger than life figurehead than the estimable Divine Miss M herself, Bette Midler.

Midler gives it her all with her trademark ball-breaking brio as the celebrity craven author whose indefatigable image fashioning was only matched by par by her long-suffering but ever devoted husband and business partner Irving Mansfield (touché Lane, making their onscreen presence a once in a lifetime pairing to appreciative audiences), who used all his show biz savvy – no matter how gauche or seemingly stooping manners of barnstorming the country to every podunk backwater stationery store or spreading the word to a busload of school children – to make Susann a giantess among the mortals in the writing field.

Based on a reminiscence by New Yorker's Michael Korda, the fact that the real Susann was no sweetheart and a real tough cookie with a few sad hurdles – her ongoing bout with cancer and the institutionalization of her only child who suffered from autism – are casually sugar-coated by Bergman (whose impeccable credits include a plethora of the comic pantheon including 'The In-Laws', 'The Freshman' and 'Blazing Saddles') and the sharply sticky screenplay by scathing scribe Paul Rudnick ('In & Out') wisely overlook her obvious flaws and instead center on the unlikely union of two borderline caricatures of the entertainment field, and their questionable romance. But Midler and Lane surpass the film's shortcomings with their theatrical overplaying, which is arguably suitable, as well as the always welcome Channing, one of our most underrated comic actresses, whose succor in her line readings are a stitch (when Susann belabors she doesn't know how to write a book, Channing says with aplomb, 'Talent isn't everything.'); she's like the salt in a margarita.

Also lending able support is Hyde Pierce in another variation of his tv persona from 'Frasier' as Susann's stuffed shirt editor and Cleese as the Nehru jacketed publisher, both in their element here.

The one thing that seems to be missing is it seems outdated and quite a lot to compress in a film that has the dubious distinction of telling the story of a woman who wasn't very nice nor well respected, but then again that hasn't been the case of celebrity history in this country, so I'm not even going to argue that!

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