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Gia
A practically unknown actress by the name of Angelina Jolie put herself on the map with a powerhouse performance in an HBO biopic called Gia playing Gia Carangi, the first true supermodel of the 1970's whose drug abuse led to her being one of the first females diagnosed with AIDS and dying from the disease at the tender age of 26.
This lavishly mounted 1998 film follows Gia from her wild years as an out and proud lesbian teen in Philadelphia to her being discovered by New York fashion agent Wilhemena Cooper (Faye Dunaway) and her meteoric rise to the queen of the runways. Sadly, her descent into drug abuse caused an equally meteoric fall from grace. Along the way the film documents Gia's troubled relationship with her mother (Mercedes Ruehl) and her turbulent love affair with a heterosexual makeup artist named Linda (Elizabeth Mitchell).
Director and co-screenwriter Michael Cristofer has crafted a loving and respectful tribute to this tragic creature, almost to the point of putting her on a cinematic pedestal but never whitewashing who Gia was. According to this film, Gia was a tornado who blew through lives and was oblivious regarding the damage she caused. She worked incredibly hard at being different and outrageous and was repelled by anything that smacked of being ordinary. This comes blazing through in her pursuit of Linda, who tells Gia that she has a boyfriend but Gia doesn't care...this was the 1970's, a time when sexual lines were beginning to blur and Gia embraced it. There's a wonderful scene where Gia does meet Linda's boyfriend, who suggests that the three of them party together but Gia is having none of it and shoves him into a wall before leaving.
Cristofer gets a little carried away with presenting Gia's actual words as part of the film's narration. Cristofer borrowed heavily from a journal that Gia kept in preparing his screenplay, but it gets a little distracting at times. One thing I did like regarding the narration: This was not the first biopic that opened with characters in the subject's story being interviewed documentary-style, but this is the first one where it seemed no two people being interviewed had similar thoughts about Gia. I was also impressed with a wonderful directorial touch where Cristofer opens the film with extreme close-ups of Jolie being made up as if right before a photo shoot but we learn at the end of the film that this is not the case.
Cristofer's biggest coup is the absolutely amazing performance he gets from Angelina Jolie, a combination of fire and ice that is so mesmerizing she received a Golden Globe and an Emmy nomination for her work. This was the start of Jolie's career and now that I've seen this, there is very little she did later in her career that matched her work here, a dazzling performances that should be studied by acting students.
Mercedes Reuhl is brilliant as Gia's mother, effortlessly projecting the character's conflicted feelings about her daughter. Elizabeth Mitchell was also terrific as Linda, creating a chemistry with Jolie I didn't see coming...there is a photo shoot near the beginning of the film that features both actresses in the nude which is one of the most erotic things I have ever seen. Oh, and that is a very young Mila Kunis playing a pre-teen Gia in the opening scenes. Cristofer deserves some credit there too. If you would like to see a truly gifted actress before her career got swallowed up by the media, check out Gia.
A practically unknown actress by the name of Angelina Jolie put herself on the map with a powerhouse performance in an HBO biopic called Gia playing Gia Carangi, the first true supermodel of the 1970's whose drug abuse led to her being one of the first females diagnosed with AIDS and dying from the disease at the tender age of 26.
This lavishly mounted 1998 film follows Gia from her wild years as an out and proud lesbian teen in Philadelphia to her being discovered by New York fashion agent Wilhemena Cooper (Faye Dunaway) and her meteoric rise to the queen of the runways. Sadly, her descent into drug abuse caused an equally meteoric fall from grace. Along the way the film documents Gia's troubled relationship with her mother (Mercedes Ruehl) and her turbulent love affair with a heterosexual makeup artist named Linda (Elizabeth Mitchell).
Director and co-screenwriter Michael Cristofer has crafted a loving and respectful tribute to this tragic creature, almost to the point of putting her on a cinematic pedestal but never whitewashing who Gia was. According to this film, Gia was a tornado who blew through lives and was oblivious regarding the damage she caused. She worked incredibly hard at being different and outrageous and was repelled by anything that smacked of being ordinary. This comes blazing through in her pursuit of Linda, who tells Gia that she has a boyfriend but Gia doesn't care...this was the 1970's, a time when sexual lines were beginning to blur and Gia embraced it. There's a wonderful scene where Gia does meet Linda's boyfriend, who suggests that the three of them party together but Gia is having none of it and shoves him into a wall before leaving.
Cristofer gets a little carried away with presenting Gia's actual words as part of the film's narration. Cristofer borrowed heavily from a journal that Gia kept in preparing his screenplay, but it gets a little distracting at times. One thing I did like regarding the narration: This was not the first biopic that opened with characters in the subject's story being interviewed documentary-style, but this is the first one where it seemed no two people being interviewed had similar thoughts about Gia. I was also impressed with a wonderful directorial touch where Cristofer opens the film with extreme close-ups of Jolie being made up as if right before a photo shoot but we learn at the end of the film that this is not the case.
Cristofer's biggest coup is the absolutely amazing performance he gets from Angelina Jolie, a combination of fire and ice that is so mesmerizing she received a Golden Globe and an Emmy nomination for her work. This was the start of Jolie's career and now that I've seen this, there is very little she did later in her career that matched her work here, a dazzling performances that should be studied by acting students.
Mercedes Reuhl is brilliant as Gia's mother, effortlessly projecting the character's conflicted feelings about her daughter. Elizabeth Mitchell was also terrific as Linda, creating a chemistry with Jolie I didn't see coming...there is a photo shoot near the beginning of the film that features both actresses in the nude which is one of the most erotic things I have ever seen. Oh, and that is a very young Mila Kunis playing a pre-teen Gia in the opening scenes. Cristofer deserves some credit there too. If you would like to see a truly gifted actress before her career got swallowed up by the media, check out Gia.