Chicago Defender
February 2, 2000 | Calloway, Earl
`Isn’t She Great‘ is fiercely hilarious
Universal’s new movie, “Isn’t She Great,” starring Bette Midler and Nathan Lane, surges with frantic incidents that unwittingly involve accidents, confrontations as the action of the film bristles with comic rhythm.
The Universal Pictures and Mutual Film of “Isn’t She Great” has a brilliant cast supporting the stars, including actors who become totally involved in their own inimitable manner while blending into the story of a woman, Jacqueline Susann, who is starving for attention and stardom. Jacqueline has used every means possible, however nothing happened.
Frustrated, she eventually takes the suggestion her manager and publicist Irving Mansfield (Nathan Lane) offered to write a book.
With no experience, Jacqueline, who hasn’t been involved with the drug scene, decides to write about Hollywood and the swift and reckless lives the stars live. Therefore, with Florence (Stockard Channing) as her assistant and Irving at her side for advice, she finishes her treatment that flames with liquid-flowing, death-dealing lava pouring out the volcano of gross iniquity.
The publisher was found and in her own manner with all the assistance from her friend Florence and lover Irving, the takes off from the press. Publisher Henry Marcus (John Cleese) caught a vision and realized that with editing and a tremendous support from his publishing company, she could emerge as the greatest storyteller among her peers.
In the meantime, editor Michael Hastings expresses the fact that it is a overwhelming expression of murky dirt, life from the gutter and filth, however he is persuaded and therefore the book is published.
Like a blaze of swift lightning she strikes out and become a national celebrity. The process is hilarious, the manner in which situations happen is completely crazy ushering in a whole contrasting manner in which books are sold.
All dressed up in her Pucci style clothes and with pomp and circumstance as befitting a significant woman, she is successful, however as she mounts the plateau of stardom she is diagnosed with breast cancer. Still, with plenty of guts, Jacqueline presses on.
Now married, her health declining, she stalks through life with fierce determine so that in a decade, she will accomplish her vision and her husband Irving’s life was devoted to her life’s objection.
One of the aspects of comedy is the fact that all experience tragic or positive, is serious business to the individual. To the observer all the action is humorous.
An example is when an individual falls on a banana peel, it’s hilarious to the one whose watching, but often fatal and embarrassing to the victim.
“Isn’t She Great” is a tremendous comedy, regardless of its serious complications.
