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Pamela: A Love Story
Baywatch babe and pop culture icon Pamela Anderson is the subject of a long-winded but never uninteresting Netflix documentary called Pamela: A Love Story that provides a lot of interesting tidbits about the actress and busts a few myths about her, but I have to admit I did find myself checking my watch.
The film opens with the star strolling the beaches of Ladysmith, British Columbia, the Canadian seaside community where she was born, dressed in a white bathrobe, sans makeup, definitely the first time I've seen Anderson that way, which was quite the shock. We learn from Pamela's lips that she had an abusive father, a female babysitter who molested her, and was raped at the age of 12 about 15 minutes into the film. We then watch Pamela pretend to stumble upon a bunch of diaries and journals she kept as a child and gives director Ryan White permission to have someone else read them but thinks reading them herself might be too painful.
Loved Pamela's recollections regarding her road to becoming a Playboy centerfold in February of 1990 and how it eventually led to her starring her role on Baywatch. Her small role on the ABC sitcom Home Improvement isn't even mentioned and I have to admit I wondered why. It's not like they were trying to save time...the documentary runs close to two hours, concentrating mostly on her stormy marriage to Motley Crew musician Tommy Lee, who she married four days after meeting him and had two children with him. Anderson talks openly about the abusive man that Tommy turned out to be and about the infamous sex tape that was stolen from her and Lee. Even though the marriage ended shortly after Lee went to jail, we are a bit thrown to learn that Lee is the only man Anderson ever really loved, despite getting married four more times.
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The film gets hard to stay invested in when the story moves past Anderson's marriage to Tommy Lee until two events happen almost simultaneously: Hulu decides to make a mini-series about her sex tape with Tommy Lee and Anderson gets an offer to replace the current Roxie Hart on Broadway in Chicago, an offer Anderson jumps at, despite no formal song or dance training. The film features interviews with Tommy Lee, her sons Brandon and Dylan, and her parents, but there are no interviews with anyone who worked with Anderson on Home Improvement or Baywatch, so take from that what you will. It's a little antiseptic and one-sided, but never boring.
Baywatch babe and pop culture icon Pamela Anderson is the subject of a long-winded but never uninteresting Netflix documentary called Pamela: A Love Story that provides a lot of interesting tidbits about the actress and busts a few myths about her, but I have to admit I did find myself checking my watch.
The film opens with the star strolling the beaches of Ladysmith, British Columbia, the Canadian seaside community where she was born, dressed in a white bathrobe, sans makeup, definitely the first time I've seen Anderson that way, which was quite the shock. We learn from Pamela's lips that she had an abusive father, a female babysitter who molested her, and was raped at the age of 12 about 15 minutes into the film. We then watch Pamela pretend to stumble upon a bunch of diaries and journals she kept as a child and gives director Ryan White permission to have someone else read them but thinks reading them herself might be too painful.
Loved Pamela's recollections regarding her road to becoming a Playboy centerfold in February of 1990 and how it eventually led to her starring her role on Baywatch. Her small role on the ABC sitcom Home Improvement isn't even mentioned and I have to admit I wondered why. It's not like they were trying to save time...the documentary runs close to two hours, concentrating mostly on her stormy marriage to Motley Crew musician Tommy Lee, who she married four days after meeting him and had two children with him. Anderson talks openly about the abusive man that Tommy turned out to be and about the infamous sex tape that was stolen from her and Lee. Even though the marriage ended shortly after Lee went to jail, we are a bit thrown to learn that Lee is the only man Anderson ever really loved, despite getting married four more times.
The film gets hard to stay invested in when the story moves past Anderson's marriage to Tommy Lee until two events happen almost simultaneously: Hulu decides to make a mini-series about her sex tape with Tommy Lee and Anderson gets an offer to replace the current Roxie Hart on Broadway in Chicago, an offer Anderson jumps at, despite no formal song or dance training. The film features interviews with Tommy Lee, her sons Brandon and Dylan, and her parents, but there are no interviews with anyone who worked with Anderson on Home Improvement or Baywatch, so take from that what you will. It's a little antiseptic and one-sided, but never boring.