Isn't She Great

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Isn't great, but it's an enjoyable if overly discreet and romanticized look at a long-vanished show-business world.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

A surprisingly warm and engaging entertainment - brassy, schmaltzy, funny.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Unexpectedly entertaining, if you're willing to put up with the picture's stagy look, over-the-top moods, and heavy doses of vulgarity.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

A cupcake of a movie, a sweet and lightweight little thing that's all but served up in a ruffled paper cup.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

Ah, what glorious casting!

Austin Chronicle Russel Smith

An ideal diversion for one of those evenings when low expectations feel more like a state of grace than a surrender to vice.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

It's peppy and cheesy and filled with life and humor in just the way, you imagine, that Susann might have enjoyed.

TNT RoughCut Sarah Raskin

As brain candy goes, Isn't She Great is just that and a little bit more.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Intermittently funny.

Film.com Robert Horton

Good enough in spots to make you wish it could have sustained its campier inclinations.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

Though it does present the facts of Susann's life, it skims them so quickly and with such glorious glee that we never get a sense of who this woman really was.

Newsweek Ann-Rebecca Laschever

Midler's performance does not stand out. She remains very much Bette Midler.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Contains several profanely amusing moments, but they don't add up to much.

Film.com John Hartl

Curiously bland and flavorless.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Just isn't enough.

Film.com Moira MacDonald

What on earth is Stockard Channing doing in this mess?

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Aspires to be both stylish and coarse, camp and vulgar -- which is pretty much how Bette Midler plays it.

Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard

A watery cocktail of second-rate, Ab Fab-style bitchery and shameless schmaltz.

USA Today Mike Clark

A bottom-rung Bette Midler vehicle disguised as a biopic of novelist Jacqueline Susann, the movie is a wannabe satire shackled by misplaced reverence.

San Francisco Examiner Walter Addiego

Second-banana material.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Stack

Leaves an unintentional unpleasant aftertaste.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A flabbergasting waste of time and talent.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

If you're looking for laughs, give "Valley of the Dolls" another read instead.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Lame comic-strip excuse for a biopic.

Variety Emanuel Levy

Isn't even unintentionally funny enough to qualify as guilty pleasure a la "Valley of the Dolls."

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A flat and peculiar film.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Just plain bad. Really, really bad.

Slate David Edelstein

It used to be that Midler was a life force, but whenever she tries to play one, she looks like she's floating in formaldehyde.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

A major washout.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

An utter drag, a tepid and sterilized telling of Susann's life.

Time Richard Schickel

One of the worst messes in years.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

As bumbling and mindless, as naively misconceived, as that clapping-through-tears moniker.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

If it were the last videotape available in the only video store in the remotest corner of Alaska, I'd take one last slug of Jack Daniels and start walking directly into the howling snows.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Has to be among the worst movies ever made.