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Movies & TV

Beautiful Darling

BEAUTIFUL DARLING (Corinth, 2010) D: James Rasin. Rating: NNN DVD package: none Rating: NNN


Jimmy Slattery, born on Long Island in 1944, grows up, moves to Greenwich Village and reinvents himself as a she: Candy Darling, a beautiful, witty, platinum-blond incarnation of 40s style movie glamour. She does some theatre and stars in Andy Warhol movies. Tennessee Williams writes a play for her. Candy is living her lifelong fantasy. She dies in 1974 at 29.

Candy’s life and scene are thoroughly dissected in masses of archival footage, period and contemporary interviews and readings from her diary by Chloë Sevigny. Among those weighing in are Warhol, Williams, John Waters, Paul Morrissey, Holly Woodlawn and Fran Lebowitz.

It’s great stuff as biography and as social and transgender history. It also raises serious questions about identity. Is Candy, a man choosing to live not only as a woman, but as a Hollywood glamour queen, being true to herself or living a lie? Stay to the end of the credits for Candy’s final word.

EXTRAS English audio. No subtitles.

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