Anna Nicole

A true-life movie so good, so well-written and yet sleazy enough to satisfy even the cheesiest viewers among us.

The end result isn’t a very good biopic and certainly not a noble one.

The bad wigs and fluctuating accents are counteracted by Mary Harron's dream-like direction, and the emphasis on plot points rather than character development is occasionally shaken by some of the noteworthy performances (such as Virginia Madsen as Smith's hard-bitten mother).

It’s a bleak and predictable story, not just because of where it took Anna Nicole, but because of where it took those around her.

Anna Nicole has an extraordinarily hazy point of view, tonally sympathetic to Smith but unwilling to explore any of the details, sloppy but particularizing, that might mitigate and humanize her increasingly terrible behavior.

The only way to get through the whole thing is to take a shot of peach schnapps whenever Smith blows kisses, poledances, or trips and falls down.

It’s storytelling at its most shallow and unsatisfying.