'Pamela, a love story' works to help Pamela Anderson reclaim her narrative - CNN

CNN  — 

The connection “Intimate” is often utilized erstwhile describing personage documentaries, but it surely applies to “Pamela, a emotion story,” which astatine 1 constituent shows Pamela Anderson lounging successful the bathtub arsenic portions of her diaries are work arsenic voiceover. The effect is simply a humanizing look astatine a pistillate often reduced to cartoon caricature, portion occasionally feeling excessively conspicuously similar a licensed product.

Produced by, among others, Anderson’s lad Brandon Thomas Lee, manager Ryan White (whose biographical documentaries see “Ask Dr. Ruth” and “Serena”) had entree not lone to her diaries but a postulation of location movies – including, yes, the 1 stolen and posted for the satellite to see, of Anderson having enactment with her then-husband, drummer Tommy Lee.

Anderson, present 55, speaks astatine magnitude of that interlude, the invasiveness of having backstage worldly shown and exploited successful that fashion, and what she intelligibly sees arsenic a reopening of those wounds with Hulu’s constricted bid “Pam & Tommy,” which dramatized those events.

Anderson’s relationship really does small to detract from that Emmy-nominated production, which was rather sympathetic successful portraying the wounded she felt and the mode the media treated her. Indeed, the clips presented present of late-night comics cashing successful connected Anderson arsenic a punchline, oregon interviewers Matt Lauer and Larry King asking her astir her breasts, bash arsenic overmuch to endorse the Hulu mentation arsenic undermine it.

“Pamela” makes wide that Anderson is letting her defender down close from the outset, arsenic she appears makeup-free, hanging retired successful the tiny British Columbia municipality wherever she grew up, earlier getting discovered astatine a shot crippled (fans “oohed” erstwhile she appeared connected the scoreboard camera) launched her arsenic a exemplary and into the pages of Playboy.

As Anderson tells it, during that clip she reclaimed her sexuality, having experienced maltreatment connected much than 1 juncture arsenic a child.

International stardom connected “Baywatch” followed, and it’s amusing to perceive Anderson reminisce not lone astir each the celebrities she dated during that stretch, but the full “Running connected the formation successful dilatory motion” imagery. (There’s nary notation of “Home Improvement,” oregon Anderson’s recent allegations successful her memoir of being flashed by its star, Tim Allen, which the comic has denied.)

The indignities of that “blond bombshell” presumption are nicely documented here. Ditto for the intrusions of the paparazzi, who dogged her peculiarly aft the whirlwind romance with Lee.

The feeding frenzy surrounding the enactment portion “solidified the cartoon image” of her, Anderson recalls, adding, “I knew astatine that constituent my vocation was over.”

While “Pamela” handles each of that rather well, excessively overmuch of the remainder of it plays similar the Hallmark Card mentation of Anderson’s story, from the cloying, saccharine euphony to the interviews with her sons, whose protectiveness toward their parent is admirable but not particularly enlightening.

The past portion of the documentary besides feels a spot scattered, venturing into areas similar Anderson’s animal-rights activism done PETA, her advocacy for WikiLeaks laminitis Julian Assange and, finally, her Broadway debut successful “Chicago.”

At its best, “Pamela, a emotion story” strips distant what successful hindsight looks similar misogynistic media sum – obsessed with her looks and relationships – to see the idiosyncratic down each of that, portion proving a small excessively determined and pliable successful the extremity of helping Anderson asseverate ownership implicit her narrative.

At those moments, “Pamela” mightiness enactment arsenic a emotion story, but it fares a small little good arsenic a documentary.

“Pamela, a emotion story” premieres January 31 connected Netflix.