The Rose

Bette Midler is fantastic as a rock star, modelled on Janis Joplin, whose success as a musician cannot erase the scars of her childhood. Her descent into drugs and alcohol is detailed with an almost clinical precision, as is the callousness of the music industry. The film features a collection of wonderful set pieces where Midler performs blues-tinged rock and roll and these mesmerising musical performances act as a chorus to the drama we are watching. The cinematography is by Vilmos Zsigmond and the intelligent, adult script is co-written by Bo Goldman. Frederic Forrest and Alan Bates are excellent as the singer’s frustrated lovers, but it is Midler who is the dazzling centrepiece of this movie. In many ways she expresses the contradictory emotional and social changes women began to experience in the Vietnam Era. Songs include “The Rose”, “Stay With Me” and “When A Man Loves A Woman”.