CNN —
The word “intimate” is often used to describe celebrity documentaries, but it certainly applies to “Pamela, A Love Story,” which at one point features Pamela Anderson lounging in the bathtub while parts of her diaries are voiced -To be read over. The result is a humanizing look at a woman that’s often reduced to cartoon caricature while occasionally feeling overly flashy like a licensed product.
Produced in part by Anderson’s son Brandon Thomas Lee, director Ryan White (whose biographical documentaries include Ask Dr. Ruth and Serena) not only had access to her diaries, but also to a collection of home videos – including, yes, the one was stolen and released to the world where Anderson has sex with her then-husband, drummer Tommy Lee.
Anderson, now 55, speaks at length about that interlude, the invasiveness of having private material displayed and exploited in this way, and what she clearly sees as a reopening of those wounds with Hulu’s limited series Pam & Tommy, which dramatized those events.
Anderson’s account actually does little to detract from this Emmy-nominated production, which was quite sympathetic in depicting the pain she felt and the way the media treated her. Indeed, the clips presented here of late-night comics cashing in on Anderson as a punch line, or interviewers Matt Lauer and Larry King asking her about her boobs, support the Hulu version as much as they undermine it.
“Pamela” makes it clear that Anderson has been on the alert from the start as she hangs out makeup-free in the small British Columbia town where she grew up before being spotted at a soccer game (fans oohten, when she appeared on the scoreboard camera) launched her as a model and into the pages of Playboy.
During this time, Anderson recounts, she reclaimed her sexuality after experiencing abuse more than once as a child.
International fame followed with Baywatch, and it’s amusing to hear how Anderson remembers not only all the celebrities she dated during that stretch, but also all the slow-mo beach run pics . (There’s no mention of “Home Improvement” or Anderson’s recent claims in her memoir of being flashed by her star Tim Allen, which the comic has denied.)
The humiliations of this “blonde bombshell” status are well documented here. Ditto for the intrusion of the paparazzi who stalked her especially after the hurricane romance with Lee.
The binge eating surrounding the sextape “solidified the cartoon image” of her, Anderson recalls, adding, “I knew by then that my career was over.”
While “Pamela” handles all of that reasonably well, the rest plays too much like the Hallmark Card version of Anderson’s story, from the cloying, saccharine music to the interviews with their sons, whose protective instincts toward their mother are admirable, but not particularly insightful.
The latter part of the documentary also feels a bit scattered, venturing into areas like Anderson’s animal rights activism through PETA, her advocacy for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and finally her Broadway debut in Chicago.
At best, “Pamela, A Love Story” removes what, in hindsight, looks like misogynist media coverage – obsessing over her looks and relationships – to look at the person behind it all, while revealing herself as a bit too determined and soft on the goal turns out to be helping Anderson assert ownership of her narrative.
In moments like this, Pamela might work as a love story, but it fares a little less well as a documentary.
“Pamela, A Love Story” starts on January 31 on Netflix.