Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999)

Short: The rise and fall of Hollywood singer-starlet Dorothy Dandridge (Halle Berry), the first African-American woman to be nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award.

Yup, that's all you need to know right there.

Alright, I confess that it's another made-for-TV movie, although not as obscenely long as Attlia.

This was supposed to be Berry's breakout role, and, to her credit, it is a breakout performance. Berry's the whole show as an African American woman who paved the way in Hollywood while everyone else was reduced to slaves or prostitutes. Of course, when I watch 24, I'm not sure Miss Dandridge would be pleased with the way things turned out for black female characters. She would, I think, find it fitting that Berry's the first African American actress to win the award. Berry is whirlwind as Dandridge, singing and dancing her little heart out. It's not wonder Dandridge was so successful.

The rest of it didn't really turn my crank, though. It had lots of people I like, but I didn't buy the idea that Dandridge would define her life by the men she was with at the time. Her sexual conquests wouldn't be nearly as important to her movie ones. I suppose some of them were inexorably linked but likely not as much that Shonda Rhimes and Scott Abbott's teleplay would have us believe.

Of course, the narrative device of having Dorothy telling her entire story to her sister-in-law who was there the whole time was ill-advised at best.

While Martha Coolidge's direction is powerful, it's not nearly as astonishing as it should be. I wanted to feel like Dorothy was breaking down barriers and paving the way. I wanted to feel like she was at the precipice of something great, not a great big bed. I didn't get any of it, though.

Call me crazy, call me a feminist, call me both. I'd still like to believe that a woman, especially one as important as Dandridge, is more than just the sum of her sexual parts. B