Gretchen Mol so perfectly embodies the title role both physically and dramatically that you can almost forgive the somewhat lackluster treatment of 1950's pin-up model Bettie Page's early life story presented in this 2006 movie. In a deceptively facile performance, the actress successfully submerges her blonde, Nordic beauty to play the naïve, raven-haired Southern girl with a refreshing lack of self-consciousness. Director Mary Harron and screenwriter Guinevere Turner deserve kudos for making a film that does not judge Page's notoriety or provide dime-store psychoanalysis on why she felt comfortable posing for fetish and bondage photos sold under the counter and by mail order. The offset to the filmmakers' approach is that we get is a series of episodes that are intended to show how her persona was formed, all within the context of her guileless acceptance no matter how outwardly outrageous some of the things that are asked of her.
The time-spanning plot tracks Page from her abused adolescence in Nashville through a brief first marriage to a life-changing trip to New York that begins her inadvertent modeling career while she attempts to become a respectable stage actress. Tenaciously holding on to her strong religious beliefs, Page gains the attention of an army of shutterbug club photographers who have her pose in various states of undress. With each new session, she is asked to pose in increasingly deviant situations. As a framing device for the plot, the filmmakers use the 1955 Senate subcommittee hearing headed by Presidential hopeful Estes Kefauver, who is aggressively looking to clean up the pornography industry. In the eye of the media storm is Page, who views her scandalous photos as harmless expressions of her unfulfilled acting career. With a lot of questions left unanswered, the story simply stops at a point soon after her retirement from modeling with no indication of what happens to Page afterward.
On the plus side, the movie has a great period look with cinematographer Mott Hupfel bringing out a luscious sheen to the black-and-white camera-work with effective forays into saturated color, in particular, when the story moves to Miami. Other than Mol, Harron seems to encourage her cast to act in the stilted, exaggerated style of movies produced during the 1950's as Chris Bauer and Lili Taylor (who seems to be channeling Thelma Ritter) play the Klaws, a money-minded couple who run the photography studio responsible for most of her pictures; Jared Harris especially oily as bondage expert and magazine publisher John Willie; and David Strathairn in an extended cameo as Kefauver.
Above everything else is the intoxicating Mol, who holds the disparate events of Page's life together though her genuinely magnetic quality. Try to take your eyes off her as she unaffectedly poses au natural in the park for a gawking amateur photographer, and you see an actor completely comfortable with herself. But more importantly, look at her as her scandal-ridden reputation weighs on her as others point out how base and lurid her photos are, and you see a beacon into the radical transformation that Page must have experienced. It's a triumphant performance for an actress victimized by premature publicity heralding her as the next big thing nearly a decade earlier. I just wish the rest of the film reflected a little more of the depth that Mol does.
The time-spanning plot tracks Page from her abused adolescence in Nashville through a brief first marriage to a life-changing trip to New York that begins her inadvertent modeling career while she attempts to become a respectable stage actress. Tenaciously holding on to her strong religious beliefs, Page gains the attention of an army of shutterbug club photographers who have her pose in various states of undress. With each new session, she is asked to pose in increasingly deviant situations. As a framing device for the plot, the filmmakers use the 1955 Senate subcommittee hearing headed by Presidential hopeful Estes Kefauver, who is aggressively looking to clean up the pornography industry. In the eye of the media storm is Page, who views her scandalous photos as harmless expressions of her unfulfilled acting career. With a lot of questions left unanswered, the story simply stops at a point soon after her retirement from modeling with no indication of what happens to Page afterward.
On the plus side, the movie has a great period look with cinematographer Mott Hupfel bringing out a luscious sheen to the black-and-white camera-work with effective forays into saturated color, in particular, when the story moves to Miami. Other than Mol, Harron seems to encourage her cast to act in the stilted, exaggerated style of movies produced during the 1950's as Chris Bauer and Lili Taylor (who seems to be channeling Thelma Ritter) play the Klaws, a money-minded couple who run the photography studio responsible for most of her pictures; Jared Harris especially oily as bondage expert and magazine publisher John Willie; and David Strathairn in an extended cameo as Kefauver.
Above everything else is the intoxicating Mol, who holds the disparate events of Page's life together though her genuinely magnetic quality. Try to take your eyes off her as she unaffectedly poses au natural in the park for a gawking amateur photographer, and you see an actor completely comfortable with herself. But more importantly, look at her as her scandal-ridden reputation weighs on her as others point out how base and lurid her photos are, and you see a beacon into the radical transformation that Page must have experienced. It's a triumphant performance for an actress victimized by premature publicity heralding her as the next big thing nearly a decade earlier. I just wish the rest of the film reflected a little more of the depth that Mol does.