Great? Not by a Long Shot By Desson Howe Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, January 28, 2000

Bette Midler and Nathan Lane conduct some unfunny business in "Isn't She Great." (Universal)

"Isn't She Great," a woefully ungreat biopic about trash-writing queen Jacqueline Susann, is definitely not worth braving any weather for.

Although Bette Midler, who plays "Valley of the Dolls" author Jackie-S, proves to be an amusing live wire at times, and although screenwriter Paul Rudnick (who co-wrote "AddamsFamily Values") has a wicked talent for drag-queen-culture one-liners, this movie slumps endlessly through the Valley of the Dulls.

If it were the last videotape available in the only video store in the remotest corner of Alaska, I'd take one last slug of Jack Daniels and start walking directly into the howling snows.

And poor Nathan Lane. As Irving Mansfield, the publicity agent who falls in love with Susann and leads her all the way to pulp-fiction mega-fame, he has to spend almost all of this movie's 95 minutes gazing adoringly in her direction. I bet his face ached after the third day of shooting.

For all the movie's celebration of Susann's tell-it-like-it-is bluster, it's amazingly coy. The real relationship between her and Mansfield is a head-scratcher.

Are we to believe that Lane (hardly anyone's idea of a heterosexual romantic lead) is madly in love with Midler? They don't kiss or touch. I don't remember a single physical moment between them. And when Mansfield fussily places a handkerchief on the sidewalk and goes down on bended knee before Susann, you wonder if he's going to propose or sing "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina."

Well, he proposes and it's the beginning of a beautiful marriage. But what kind of marriage is it? Director Andrew Bergman's movie seems to have no idea what it's trying to tell us.

The plot follows the familiar gotta-make-it-at-any-cost scenario: Failed actress Susann is suffering through bit parts on stage and screen when Mansfield – enraptured with Her Susannness – begs to become her agent.

Why he adores her so much isn't made clear either, unless he wants to be her. But his undying faith is a big part of her success. And it's Mansfield's chance sighting of a woman reading a Sidney Sheldon novel that makes him hit upon the idea of turning Jacqueline into a novelist.

After all, she knows the dark side of the theatrical life, the wannabes and has-beens and their sexual depravities and drug taking. She can write the kind of material that eventually informs her first triumph, "Valley of the Dolls."

The movie, essentially, has four connecting strands:

So, pulp fame, a mentally challenged kid who can do high-fives, death from cancer and a tree that amounts to God's Speaker Phone? What are you waiting for? Rent that snow-plow and blaze a trail to your neighborhood theater now. Because in about 13 days, that movie is gone, gone, gone. I hope.

ISN'T SHE GREAT (R, 95 minutes) – Contains strong language but, thankfully, no nudity.