Gretchen Mol's impeccable casting as the winking, ticklish nudie-cutie Bettie Page could not have been a better choice, but that was the film's biggest inspiration and nothing else here quite measures up. A naïve gal from Tennessee, church-going and raised by a strict mother, hits New York City in 1949 after walking out on her marriage to an abusive soldier. Bettie wins a few modest beauty contests before stepping into her future role as a pin-up model for men's entertainment magazines; with times and tastes quickly changing however, the era of the cheesecake photo passes and Bettie smoothly segues into a harder type of pornography: bondage photos and light S&M shorts. Nothing in this girl's life appears to happen according to a plan...it's all serendipitous. Bettie is asked, "You wanna try this?" or "Can you do something like this?", and her answer is always, "Sure, why not!" To her it was all fun and games, accompanied by a big country smile and an innocent shrug. When her steady fellow points out to her how disreputable her S&M photos are, her answer is to fly off to Miami Beach, where she picks up a muscle-boy and dances under the stars. Are we to assume Bettie was not so sweet and innocent, that she knew exactly what she was doing? A flashback to Page's childhood suggests a certain looseness already forming (also a hint of sexual abuse by a man who appears to be her father). The subplot about a formal investigation into smut-peddlers is a squashy mess, and the black-and-white cinematography is mostly disappointing. Still, Gretchen Mol is something else entirely; creating a genuine character out of this noodle-headed script shows true talent, and she matches up with our memories of the legendary Bettie Page quite nicely. We never feel anything for this Bettie, we're never moved by her sordid ups-and-downs, though that's due to the handling. Mol rises above the sloppy material and gives it more than just a nostalgic kick. She's in the spirit, even if the rest of the picture could certainly use some soul. ** from ****