The Rose [1979]

Description

Product Description Bette Midler stars as rock singer Rose, whose vocal style and turbulent personal life closely resembles that of real-life pop icon Janis Joplin. When Rose asks for a break from her punishing touring schedule, her manager (Alan Bates) refuses. Dangerously burnt-out, the singer self-destructs through drink and drugs, despite her romance with a long-suffering chauffeur (Frederic Forrest). From .co.uk Bette Midler plays a Janis Joplin-like singer overwhelmed by stardom and its excesses. Mark Rydell (On Golden Pond) directs what is a kind of hybrid showcase for Midler's concert talents and a standard pop biopic, with the usual rhythms of desire, success, betrayal, failure, and such. Alan Bates is the best thing about the movie as the Rose's ruthless manager, and Harry Dean Stanton and Frederic Forrest add some interesting seasoning. But as a whole, the film can't rise above its mixed purposes or clichés. --Tom Keogh