I never once believed that Susan Sarandon was anywhere close to being Doris Duke, the poor little rich girl who is rumored to have been slowly killed by loyal butler and companion Bernard Lafferty. Regardless of the truth, it's obvious from the two versions of this story that I've seen on screen that he did at least like her, so questions of his guilt still remains.
Ralph Fiennes is a bit better casting as Bernard, not as flamboyant and outspoken as Richard Chamberlain was even though he does have one embarrassing scene in bad drag. Sarandon, obviously too young, resembles an aging hippy more than the richest woman in the world, and inconsistencies in her performance are a major flaw unlike Lauren Bacall in the 1999 TV movie (highly underrated in my opinion) which covered a lot more detail of Duke's life.
This starts off with a disclaimer that a ton of facts have been changed, never a good sign in a movie. HBO has done better jobs with TV movie biographies so this is a complete disappointment. The only other real major character is surroundings lawyer, played by the excellent James Rebhorn who is the only one to warn Duke against Bernard.
Although surrounding does get to age towards the end of the film, it comes a little too late and it seems like no time has passed it all between the time she comes home from the hospital looking fine and the time that she begins to face death and even remotely looks haggard. The method in which this is presented as odd, often with the feel of a black comedy, and this leads to the film just falling flat rather than giving any remote truth to a mystery that is still unsolved even though over 25 years have passed.
Ralph Fiennes is a bit better casting as Bernard, not as flamboyant and outspoken as Richard Chamberlain was even though he does have one embarrassing scene in bad drag. Sarandon, obviously too young, resembles an aging hippy more than the richest woman in the world, and inconsistencies in her performance are a major flaw unlike Lauren Bacall in the 1999 TV movie (highly underrated in my opinion) which covered a lot more detail of Duke's life.
This starts off with a disclaimer that a ton of facts have been changed, never a good sign in a movie. HBO has done better jobs with TV movie biographies so this is a complete disappointment. The only other real major character is surroundings lawyer, played by the excellent James Rebhorn who is the only one to warn Duke against Bernard.
Although surrounding does get to age towards the end of the film, it comes a little too late and it seems like no time has passed it all between the time she comes home from the hospital looking fine and the time that she begins to face death and even remotely looks haggard. The method in which this is presented as odd, often with the feel of a black comedy, and this leads to the film just falling flat rather than giving any remote truth to a mystery that is still unsolved even though over 25 years have passed.