Crassly cynical celebration of fame and success no matter how ill-gotten. (Just what we need from Hollywood.) The occasion is a "biopic" on the self-promoting Valley of the Dolls author, Jacqueline Susann, a personage not so much portrayed by Bette Midler as invaded, taken over, occupied by her. And it is hard to tell whether Nathan Lane, as her agent-husband, is intentionally playing a homosexual or simply can't help himself. The period is re-created with affection, and it must have seemed a good idea to bring in Burt Bacharach to write the songs (less memorable ones, it turns out, than his "Theme from Valley of the Dolls"), but the comical stuff is as flat as it is broad. And behind its devil-may-care exterior, the movie is surprisingly reticent about Susann's private life (her hidden-away autistic child, her unmentioned infidelities), and spinelessly sycophantic about her professional one. With Stockard Channing, David Hyde Pierce, and John Cleese; directed by Andrew Bergman. (2000) — Duncan Shepherd
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