One of my all time favorites.

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

It's 1969. Mary Rose Foster (Bette Midler) is a tired superstar. She is lonely, drunk, a recovering drug addict, and desperate to get off the stage. His greedy manager Rudge Campbell talks her out of it. She gets dismissed by country legend Billy Ray (Harry Dean Stanton) and she runs off with limo driver Huston Dyer (Frederic Forrest). He's AWOL from the Army.This is a tour de force performance from Bette Midler. She uses all of her singing and stage presence to be a rock star on film. It helps that she does really perform on stage. There are some solid hits. It's her film acting debut and she shines. It's a great launching pad for her. The plot does ramble on and on. It would help to place a destination or a ticking clock on the story. I never really love Dyer although I thought they were building good chemistry until that incident. I assumed that relationship would be central all the way to the end. The flow is a little ragged. The overriding takeaway is Bette Midler's terrific performance.

I finally got to see "The Rose" (1979) last night. It's a sad tale of a Janis Joplin-like rock star, Mary Rose Foster (Bette Midler), who desperately wants to take a break from the rock 'n' roll train, but her manager (Alan Bates) won't let her due to business obligations.It's not all sad though. The film plays-out like a docudrama with quite a bit of lively concert footage. If you like this style of rock (guitar/horns/etc.) you'll like the movie more than I did. The Rose falls for a limo driver (Fredric Forrest) and they have some misadventures, mostly at bars and other places of the night, like a drag queen show. The plot culminates in The Rose' "coming home" gig at her hometown in Florida.Bette is passionate in the role, but I was never a fan. Nor do I dislike her; I'm neutral. The role calls for a lot of hysteria because that's the rock star lifestyle, at least it was in that era, 1970. As such, the film's really over-the-top. If you can't stomach a lot of hysterical scenes I'd suggest staying away.I prefer 1991's "The Doors", which has the same theme, but is about a real individual, Jim Morrison, and contains more recognizable (better) music.BOTTOM LINE: Unless you like Bette Midler and the style of music, this movie won't likely trip your trigger. It's the story of a rock star who needs a break but can't get it, so she goes totally out of control. It's "sex, drugs and Rock 'n' roll," but it's mostly alcohol and rock 'n' roll -- music, alcohol, bars, music, alcohol, bars, repeat to the end. That's the movie. I'm skipping something, but I don't want to give it away; it should be obvious anyway.GRADE: C+

Well first off, of COURSE this is a loose life of Janis--all you have to do is look at the crazy clothes & the booze & the screech. It doesn't have to match exactly. Don't make me have to tell you again.Second, sometimes a person just disappears into a role: that's what our Bette did on this one. There's no reason to quibble about details, anymore than there would be to go to the stadium to see the Rose in concert without bringing yer favorite choice of um *cough* recreation drug. Sex, drugs & rock n roll. Peace out, dude.I feel as though many attempts, such as Gwyneth Paltrow's recent country western voyage, sort of co-opt the experience of the road. Whereas, if you really get into it, you almost OD on the music, such as when trying to watch Neil Young's bio a few years back. OMG, so much extended riffing as to be almost a...raga! Unable to meditate, though. One cannot, or at least I cannot, let go enough to last through a 20 minute guitar solo. This does not make a good movie.As to The Rose not having a plot. It starts, it moves towards a more or less inevitable conclusion and then it ends. What the movie goer expects might be more conventional, but this is not a conventional character, ya know.

Bette Midler offers a performance that is both powerful (for the actress) and troubling (for the character.) She plays Mary Rose Foster, a girl who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in Florida, but by 1969 (when the movie is set) ended up as a mega-rock star known simply as "The Rose." Unfortunately, in the midst of all her success her life falls apart. She ends up (by the time the movie begins) as a lonely alcoholic close to burnout, but with a manager (Alan Bates) who won't let her have time to recuperate, and instead just keeps pushing her on and on to the next show. Rose just wants to play one last concert - in her hometown to show the locals what a star she's become and then (as she says repeatedly) she wants to take a year off (and from the looks of her she could use it.) Midler made this movie. It was her first starring role, and it was a challenging one, but she pulled it off perfectly. I'm not a huge fan of her style of singing, but the behind the scenes look at life on the road was interesting enough, at least for a while. Admittedly, the story became a bit monotonous after a while and there were extended scenes that really didn't seem necessary to the development of the story, but director Mark Rydell does manage to pull the viewer into Rose's life, and make her a sympathetic character. The movie also featured a decent performance from Frederic Forrest as Rose's love interest Huston Dyer, who started as her chauffeur and ended up as her lover, but eventually had to get away from her and the life she was leading, although I found the romance a bit too contrived to be believable.I thought this was a good movie, memorable mostly for Midler and the music. Even with the weaknesses that are clearly present, I'm still going to 8/10 for this.