Pretty Is As Pretty Does

In The Mirror, Barbra begins as a slightly overweight, mildly shlumpy woman, which means that she wears flattering oversize sweaters and schoolgirl berets; the other people on screen keep insisting that Barbra isn’t wearing make up, a question that was later raised at the O.J. civil trial. Barbra still lives at home with her mother, played by Lauren Bacall, who favors Barbra’s glamorous younger sister and has never told Barbra that she’s pretty. In interviews, Barbra has claimed that her real mother never told her she was pretty; as Barbra told US magazine, The Mirror is not merely a fluffy romantic comedy but contains “serious overtones about vanity and beauty, the external versus the internal“. The film dares to ask the largest philosophical question possible something even more profound than Is there a God?, Why is there evil?, Or why is this film shot in such soft focus that sometimes the actors don’t seem to have eyes? That question is of course, Is Barbra pretty?

Barbra soon meets Jeff Bridges, who plays an adorably rumpled math professor who is so tormented by his affairs with beautiful young women that he longs for a sexless “union of the souls” with Barbra, and they get married. Barbra falls in love with Jeff and wants a fully passionate, sexual relationship; one night she lights candles, wears a black négligée, and puts the moves on Jeff, who runs from the room, refusing to tell Barbra that she’s pretty. For this he must be punished, and Barbra leaves him just as he’s about to go off on a European book tour. Barbra returns to her mother’s apartment, where she confronts Lauren, asking her what it’s like to be pretty. Then she forces Lauren to confess that she’s always been secretly jealous of Barbra. Watching a 54-year-old movie star haranguing her mother on the screen is a very special moment; it’s like seeing the perfect therapy payoff, where your mom writes a formal note of apology for your childhood and has it printed as a full page ad in the Times. When Lauren breaks down, Barbra smiles and knowingly half smiles and nods sagely, and I’m sure that in Europe the subtitle will read, SEE, I’M PRETTY. TOLD YOU.

While Jeff is away, Barbra diets and works out, and she greets him with the results of her transformation: the camera travels up her body, revealing her newly slim figure, her manicure, her cleavage, and finally, her highlighted perm and her heavily made-up face. Jeff is stunned, and I waited for him to exclaim, “Oh, my God! While I was in Paris you turned into a nasty Beverly Hills divorcée!” Instead, Jeff just gravels and Barbra walks out on him, in proud moral victory. Then she teaches her class and the clinging low-cut top, and all of her students, even the girls, drool and ogle her. Everywhere Barbra goes, she is lusted after, as if no one in New York had ever seen a grizzled mafia wife with a Sassoon cut before. Barbra even has a scene with her plump best friend, Brenda Vaccaro, in which Brenda frets that they are no longer in the same pathetic boat, now that Barbra is a knockout. Barbra comforts Brenda, helping her to work through her selfish problem, and their chitchat is more hateful toward women than anything in Hustler or on Baywatch; Brenda’s issue is, of course, Why can’t I be as pretty as Barbra?

My favorite review is when they said they acted like Barbra turned into Michelle Pfeiffer when she had her makeover.

Finally, Jeff comes to his senses and stands outside Barbra’s apartment building, howling her name she runs downstairs in white satin pajamas, he confesses that he has always loved her, and they dance together ecstatically in the street, As the credits roll and Barbra sings “I Finally Found Someone” with Bryan Adams, although the song would be more appropriately performed by Barbra and that mirror. It’s a truly gorgeous finale, as if Sunset Boulevard had been directed by Norma Desmond. It is simply the ultimate Barbra moment, where all the world tells Barbra that it loves her and that she’s pretty. It’s like watching Clint Eastwood directing himself as a sexy, 64-year-old shirtless stud in the Bridges of Madison County; it’s like seeing Warren Beatty back light himself like the Virgin Mary in Love Affair; it’s like casting Barbra Streisand in Nell.

I left the theater in tears of joy, and I ran to meet my mother, Sondra Krell-Gelman, for a post Hanukkah brunch at Sarabeth’s Kitchen. I stood at the table with my coat on, demanding, “Why didn’t you ever tell me I was pretty?“ “Are you nuts?” my mom replied. “I told you that you were pretty 50 times a day. I told you that you were the most beautiful child who has ever lived, and that no man would ever truly deserve such a perfect jewel. That’s why you’re so healthy today.” “That’s true,” I admitted, but then I saw through her little game. “But, Mother,“ I said, “Why didn’t you ever tell Barbra she was pretty?“

“I sent a note!” My mother insisted, but it wasn’t enough. I was on a holy crusade. I ran into the street, aglow with my mission, and accosted a jogger by grabbing his fanny pack, his Walkman, and his mobile reading light. “Have you told Barbara she was pretty today?” I bellowed. “No!” He moaned, falling to his kneepads in shame. “I’m sorry, Barbra!” He cried out. “You’re the most beautiful woman in the world! Your new boyfriend, James Brolin, isn’t worthy- you should become a lesbian so you can date yourself!”

“Have you told Barbra she’s pretty?” I asked a Hispanic woman with a grocery cart and two small children. “Si! Si!” The woman insisted. “She is the vision of Guadalupe! I have told my little ones, ‘you must pray to Barbra, to make your grandmother well again!‘ Every day I kneel before her photo from Funny Lady and I sing to ‘Let’s Hear It For Me!’” Soon the fever spread across the city, the nation, and the world; everywhere I went, people hung out of windows, chanted from rooftops, and intoned from that Vatican balcony: “Barbra, your mother was wrong! You may be 54 and completely self obsessed with stuff even 13-year-olds get over, but you’re right! You’re pretty!“

Finally there was one hold out: my cousin Andrew. Andrew has always been a Barbra loveslave; he has even claimed that during “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough),” Barbra’s Disco duet with Donna Summer, Barbra didn’t pinch Donna so that she’d stop holding notes. But Andrew has disdained The Mirror Has Two Faces; he said that Barbra used to resist playing the standard ingenue, a nice girl, but that in The Mirror she betrayed her fans by playing a 54-year-old twinkie, And that watching the scene in which Jeff is forced to call her “a pretty girl” is like watching Godzilla crush Tokyo. I said that no one ever accused Lawrence Olivier of making a vanity film when he directed himself as Hamlet, but Andrew said that Hamlet wasn’t just worried about making Gertrude tell him he was pretty.

Andrew said that Barbra is a brilliant actress with no interest in playing a character. He said that all of Barbra’s on screen pals now have to be played by increasingly older, non-threatening actors, and that pretty soon she’ll be hanging out with the cast of Cocoon, talking about boys and prom night. He said that at least in Yentl and even the Prince of Tides Barbra wasn’t playing roles based entirely on her image of herself, and that watching The Mirror was grim, like reading one of Donald Trump’s autobiographies as an inspirational text.

“But, Andrew,“ I said, “don’t you think that Barbra is pretty?” “Barbra has been a legend since she was in her teens! She’s a zillionaire! The entire world has told Barbra that she’s pretty! What more does she want?” “You know,“ I said calmly. “I’ll try,” said Andrew, finally surrendering and sobbing at my feet. And with that he crawled off on his secret mission, his grail: to kill Barbra’s mother. It’s the least he can do after how he behaved, if you ask me.

R4 you could have waited 5 minutes for continuity, you stupid cunt!

Who knew you were posting this long scribe OP. Is it over yet?

R12 that’s it. Enjoy!

Libby Gelman-Waxner*

THANK YOU THANIK THANK YOU, OP!

You're so pretty.

OP, the last time I cried this much was when Lady Peggington Noonington saw a Mexican.

I feel your pain.

Barbra is a supremely ugly woman. How could any one with functioning eyesight miss this?

If she could only accept that fact that she's interesting looking and not beautiful, she'd be okay. But she's been subjecting us to this obsession with her looks. The combination of her talent and offbeat looks is what makes her a legend. Not forcing folks to believe that she's a conventionally pretty woman. For someone who likes to play her feminist card and speaks out against inequality against females in showbiz, this reeks of retro thinking on her part. She should fucking know better. Her ego is bigger than her schnoz.

I miss movie magazines. My library stopped buying Film Comment. They still have Sight & Sound, though.