Frustrating comedy drama was made after the creative and critical debacle of Valley of the Dolls and seems to have been intended primarily to rescue Patty Duke's career as a potential movie star and re-establish her as the adorable and sweet screen presence that she was before Dolls. Hiding Duke's natural appeal under bad hair, a putty nose and Jerry Lewis teeth clearly wasn't the path to movie stardom because she only top-lined one other theatrical movie after this one, the underrated You'll Like My Mother. The bigger problem with Duke's love-me-please performance in Me, Natalie is that she doesn't do the character or the movie any favors. The basic plot involves an ugly duckling girl looking for her place in the world as a young woman. The problem with Duke's performance is that it feels shallow and gimmicky--she never captures her character's genuine pain and longing (at one point when a favorite uncle she hasn't seen since childhood comes to visit she flees through her bedroom window because she feels so awful about her looks). Patty Duke and the movie also largely ignore Natalie's negative qualities such as her complete lack of empathy for other people, her shallowness and her judgmental nature. At one point after leaving home she finds out that her dead uncle's former fiancé has died from a drug overdose and all she feels is that it's a great opportunity for her to get her first apartment. The movie seems to think this is cute and quirky but in reality it's sad and probably a little creepy. Natalie shows a similar obliviousness to anyone's feelings other than her own when she attends a former best friend's wedding, sees that the bride to be is pregnant and not marrying her boyfriend and then leaves the church without ever saying anything to her friend to even let her know that she was there. This was an opportunity for Me, Natalie to confront the main character's shallow belief that beautiful people always have beautiful lives and the movie completely flubs it by not giving Natalie and her former best friend a scene together. Natalie eventually engages in an affair with a neighbor that doesn't ultimately go anywhere because the main character is too immature and indecisive. I'm sure that wasn't the intention the filmmakers had in mind with the ending but that's about the only thing you can really take away from it. Some people might find this movie of interest as a period curio or because Al Pacino turns up for one scene in his big screen debut. I can't watch Me, Natalie without feeling sad for the big screen career that Patty Duke should have had--she probably squandered more talent than any other actor or actress from her generation. How many other actors went from winning an Academy Award to doing guest spots on The Love Boat and Hawaii Five-O?
Review of Me, Natalie
