Generally unfavorable reviews - based on 34 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 34
  2. Negative: 16 out of 34
  1. Unexpectedly entertaining, if you're willing to put up with the picture's stagy look, over-the-top moods, and heavy doses of vulgarity.
  2. 75
    Isn't great, but it's an enjoyable if overly discreet and romanticized look at a long-vanished show-business world.
  3. Reviewed by: Jay Carr
    A surprisingly warm and engaging entertainment - brassy, schmaltzy, funny.
  4. 70
  5. Ah, what glorious casting!
  6. Reviewed by: 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.
  7. 67
    It's peppy and cheesy and filled with life and humor in just the way, you imagine, that Susann might have enjoyed.
  8. Reviewed by: Sarah Raskin
    As brain candy goes, Isn't She Great is just that and a little bit more.
  9. Reviewed by: Robert Horton
    Good enough in spots to make you wish it could have sustained its campier inclinations.
  10. 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.
  11. 40
    A watery cocktail of second-rate, Ab Fab-style bitchery and shameless schmaltz.
  12. 40
    Contains several profanely amusing moments, but they don't add up to much.
  13. 40
    Just isn't enough.
  14. 40
    Aspires to be both stylish and coarse, camp and vulgar -- which is pretty much how Bette Midler plays it.
  15. Reviewed by: John Hartl
    Curiously bland and flavorless.
  16. Reviewed by: Moira MacDonald
    What on earth is Stockard Channing doing in this mess?
  17. Reviewed by: Ann-Rebecca Laschever
    Midler's performance does not stand out. She remains very much Bette Midler.
  18. A flabbergasting waste of time and talent.
  19. Leaves an unintentional unpleasant aftertaste.
  20. Reviewed by: Mike Clark
  21. 30
    Lame comic-strip excuse for a biopic.
  22. 30
    If you're looking for laughs, give "Valley of the Dolls" another read instead.
  23. Reviewed by: Emanuel Levy
    Isn't even unintentionally funny enough to qualify as guilty pleasure a la "Valley of the Dolls."
  24. 25
    A flat and peculiar film.
  25. 25
    Just plain bad. Really, really bad.
  26. An utter drag, a tepid and sterilized telling of Susann's life.
  27. Reviewed by: 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.
  28. Reviewed by: Richard Schickel
    One of the worst messes in years.
  29. Has to be among the worst movies ever made.
  30. As bumbling and mindless, as naively misconceived, as that clapping-through-tears moniker.

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