The Notorious Bettie Page (2005)

Idea: Following a series of less than desirable living situations, Bettir Page (Gretchen Mol) moves to New York to try her hand at acting. Discovered on the beach one day by amateur photographer Jerry Tibbs (Kevin Carroll), he introduces Bettie to the world of photography and the severe bang that became part of her trademark. Eventually, Bettie meets sister and brother team Irving (Chris Bauer) and Paula (Lili Taylor) Klaw, who produced some of Bettie's most famous work.

Once upon a time, I went to see a little movie called Rounders. There was this supporting actress in it, Matt Damon's on-screen love interest, and she was terrible. Take-you-out-of-the-movie-if-Edward-Norton-weren't-also-around-I'd-leave terrible. There was nothing there. Nothing. If this young lady was in a movie, I avoided it like the plague.

When Vanity Fair excitedly put her on the cover and her career promptly tanked, I was delighted. Not because I want to see others suffer (unless they are fictional) but because I wanted her to stop making me suffer.

Five years later, I saw her in another movie, and she wasn't too bad. Other people were better, but she didn't manage to ruin it for me. Mind you, I wouldn't have said I was open to giving her another chance. I just wasn't as actively against her career as I once was.

Naturally, I could only be talking about one person: Gretchen Mol. So why see this picture?

For one, pedigree. Mary Harron (director/co-writer) and Guinevere Turner (co-writer) are the exact team that so deliciously brought American Psycho to the screen. I already believed in Bale as an actor, and the movie helped put him on the map. (Sadly it would take another five years for him to step into the limelight, but I'm dealing with that.)

For two, everyone that I trusted was saying that this was a star turn for Mol. And you know what? It is. She nails the way Bettie could play naiveté and control in the same turn. Bettie managed to appear available and untouchable in her photographs, and Mol embodies that vixenish quality in her performance.

As such, it's a shame that Harron and Turner didn't make enough of a movie to back Mol up. They dance around their subject, vaguely filling in a few background details but never diving any deeper than Bettie's photo persona would allow. She was nude without every appearing naked, and the movie simply offers much of the same.

They do move it along at a good clip, though. That's something. And they had one helluva supporting cast. B+