Save your money for something good and enjoyable

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Dorothy Parker (Jennifer Jason Leigh) recalls the 20's at the Algonquin Round Table. She's a writer at Vanity Fair. Her husband Eddie (Andrew McCarthy) had returned from the war as a morphine addict. She loses her job and Robert Benchley (Campbell Scott) quits in sympathy. They and Robert Sherwood would lunch at the Algonquin Hotel gathering a circle of friends with endless drinking, sharp comments, and biting wits. Eddie turns into an abusive drunk. She has an affair with Charles MacArthur (Matthew Broderick) which leads to an abortion. The group starts up The New Yorker. Later, she remarries to actor Alan Campbell (Peter Gallagher).I have nothing but praise for Jennifer Jason Leigh. I understand most of her words and all of her meanings. However, it is a lot of drunk talking. There are loads of biting comments but none of them really elicits a laugh. These are not those types of vicious lines. "I don't review rehearsals." Most of the movie lands flat with a knowing wink. She lived a full life but I'm not that excited by this movie.

Dorothy Parker's life is so complicated that it really needs a 10 part mini-series. Basically, this movie focuses in on the relationship between Robert Benchley and Dorothy. If the movie had just focused on that, I think it would have been a hit. As it is, it is not very satisfying for many people, because of the enormous cast and the twenty or so subplots that do not get developed enough.However the photography is beautiful, the costumes and sets are terrifically faithful to the period, and the acting is sterling. I really want to knock on the door of every member of the Motion Picture Academy and when they come to the door punch them in the stomach and as they fall back in surprise, say, "That's for not giving an academy award to Jennifer Jason Leigh," for "Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle." Her performance is daring and dazzling. She did win best actress from the National Society of Film Critics.Alan Rudolph says on the director's commentary that he has a 4 hour actor's version of the film. I really hope he will release it.This is a film that needs to be watched several times to be fully appreciated. Be prepared to do lots of research to find out more about the characters in real life. Watching a few Benchley movie shorts, seeing "A Star is Born, and reading a few short stories and poems by Dorothy is a prerequisite for enjoying the film.This is the best movie we are going to get on Dorothy Parker, until someone gives me 20 million Dollars to do the mini-series.

I am a fan of many of the writers who flit in and out of this movie, but I confess I don't know much about their personal lives and habits (except perhaps for Benchley, and Thurber who is only barely mentioned in this film). This film gives the viewer a good sense of what it must have been like to be part of the wildly creative crew that surrounded the legendary Algonquin Round Table, but a very confused picture of Dorothy Parker's life. Only someone who already knows her story, and can keep her various husbands and lovers in order, can piece this mish-mash together. And none of the performers are strong enough to seem like anything more than walk-ons dressed as famous people. (The "gang" scenes work because of the fast pacing; the movie drags when we spend time with the individuals.) According to comments recorded here, Miss Leigh is doing a good vocal impression of Dorothy Parker. Maybe so (I've never heard Parker), but Leigh's delivery is so totally annoying that it's enough to drive the AUDIENCE to suicide. Is she trying to do Hepburn on downers? Sometimes her mannered accent veers toward Transylvanian.Throughout the movie, Parker herself denigrates her little "doodad" poems, but that's all the film offers us of her creative output. We never really find out about the contents of her books and plays, and how she ended up in Hollywood (and what she wrote there). After a few of her doggerel verses, they become trite. I began to wonder if people think these poems are funny because they know they're SUPPOSED to be funny.I'm sure there's probably a good movie in Mrs. Parker's life, but I don't think this is it.

Dorothy Parker was certainly a character and a witty writer, but the lives of writers are typically hard to film for obvious reasons. This movie does an adequate job and Jennifer Jason Leigh turns in the best possible performance (as we've come to expect from her). The script and the other characterizations are a bit thin but this movie is definitely worth it of you happen to be a Parker fan. Men don't make passes...