Anna Nicole

Anna Nicole (2013)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Made-for-TV movie from Lifetime about the life of Anna Nicole Smith (Agnes Bruckner) who we see as a young single mother to her marriage to billionaire J. Howard Marshall (Martin Landau) and of course through her troubled drug use. ANNA NICOLE is nicely directed by Mary Harron and it features some good performances but in the end there are just way too many problems for it to work as well as it needed to. For starters, the film seems pretty rushed trying to fit all of Smith's story into a 90-minute running time as we bounce around quite a bit and the film never really seems to focus on anything. Another problem are a few gimmicks that are used throughout the picture including a really silly one where the young Smith sees a "future" version of herself. At the same time, the older Smith seeing a "younger" version of herself has no impact either. I'd also say that the movie doesn't work with the silly narration, which is coming from the dead Smith looking back over her life. With that said, Bruckner does a nice job in the lead role even though she never really looks or acts like the real person. For the most part I thought she did a good job at showing a troubled person. Landau easily steals the picture as the elderly man who falls in love with the stripper he meets and Cary Elwes is also good as his son. Adam Goldberg does a nice job in the role of Howard K. Stern and Virginia Madsen is good as Smith's mother, although the screenplay really doesn't do many favors for the character. Harron does a nice job at keeping the film moving at a good pace but there's just too many issues with the screenplay for this to be a complete winner. It also doesn't help that Smith isn't all that sympathetic. Still, for a made-for-TV film this here isn't too bad as a quick time killer.