When telling the story of a career gone wrong, a life cut short, it usually helps if you have some material with which to work.
In the case of Brittany Murphy, the late actress who got a lucky break in the 1995 film “Clueless,” there’s not that much to say. Aside from that popular film, which is now nearly 20 years old, she didn’t have much of a career. It’s not like she was James Dean or Marilyn Monroe — stars people are still talking about. Unfortunately, she will one day be forgotten.
As presented in the Lifetime movie “The Brittany Murphy Story,” which airs Saturday night at 8 p.m., her story is every showbiz cliche rolled into one. The overwhelming ambition. The massive insecurities about everything from her weight to her online image. The vulture-like paparazzi. The gossipy gay bitches on set.
She died of pneumonia with complications from chronic anemia and multiple use of over-the-counter medications and antibiotics in 2009. She was 32.
The movie starts with Brittany’s mother, Sharon (Sherilyn Fenn), and husband, professional con man Simon Monjack (Eric Petersen), tearfully telling the paparazzi outside their Hollywood home that “they” killed Brittany. The portrait we get here is of a young woman whose self-confidence could be derailed by the slightest overheard snide remark, rumor posted on the Internet or rude question posed by a reporter.
In short, she was always a basket case.
Murphy is played by Amanda Fuller, who in no way resembles the actress but who skillfully conveys the spunky personality who attracted the likes of her “Just Married” co-star Ashton Kutcher (Adam Hagenbuch) — but who, in an early Norma Desmond moment, went to bed with him wearing full makeup.
The paparazzi must have picked up on Murphy’s neuroses at the beginning of her career, because they didn’t seem to waste an opportunity to malign her. When she lost weight before becoming a Jordache jeans model, she was quickly labeled a “Jordache Junkie.” Her image as an up-and-comer was in peril and her agents eventually dropped her.
Her fortunes sank further when she met Monjack, a slick operator who is working the red carpet as a photographer when they first meet but keeps rolling back into her life like a bad penny when she is at her most vulnerable — roughly every 15 or so minutes. After she marries him, the Department of Immigration comes-a-knocking at their Hollywood Hills home and arrests Monjack for living in the US on an expired visa. Tip of the iceberg. A lawyer hired by Murphy spells it out very plainly: The loser owes back rent and other taxes in excess of half a million dollars. Murphy turns a blind eye, even when she bails him out and he admits that the charges brought against him are true.
“I guess you can say I’ve been a bit of a sociopath,” he says.
Her reply? It’s a howler: “The past is the past.”
As Murphy’s career continues to spiral downward and her dreams die one miserable death after another, you can’t wait for “The Brittany Murphy Story” to end.
But wait: There are more cliched scenes to come. The crashing sounds coming from behind the closed bathroom door. The nearly comatose body on the bathroom floor.
Except that it’s not fun like “Valley of the Dolls,” with those hysterical shots of Patty Duke rolling around with the garbage cans in a New York alley or Barbara Parkins blindly reaching for another pill on the bathroom sink.
In life and death (and her TV movie), Brittany Murphy deserved better.