The Thousands

Until now, Gretchen Mol’s roles have ranged from ‘somewhat forgettable’ to ‘still somewhat forgettable’. Suddenly, here she is playing 1950s uber-pinup, the canonical sex symbol Bettie Page, and her performance is an amazing, bona fide transformation of Hollywood magic.

This biopic traces Bettie Page’s life through religious childhood, bondage and fetish modelling, her 1955 Playboy centrefold and being targeted by a Senate pornography investigation. Like director Mary Harron’s other work (‘I Shot Andy Warhol’, ‘American Psycho’) this isn’t a film of depths, but of surfaces, and the retro-cheesecake visuals are striking despite the low budget. (Yes, that is the boom-mike dropping into shot in the opening scene. Satisfied?). Bettie remains something of a cipher that the audience projects their issues and fantasies onto – and isn’t that the point of pornography? Like Bettie – who believes that restraints and ball-gags are just another kind of silly dress-up – the film is pretty, and sweet, and really doesn’t seem to see what all the fuss is about.