PAM & TOMMY IN REVIEW

MACHINATIONS SHOW MANY SIDES OF ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The life and times of sex symbol Pamela Anderson are treated in detail in a biopic drama series about her three year marriage with Motley Crew drummer Tommy Lee in Pam & Tommy (2022).

The couple married in 1995 after a mutual love at first sight encounter. The dreamy love relationship gradually goes sideways, though, when a sex video taped during their honeymoon is released on the Internet.

Lily James plays Pamela Anderson. James is helped in her transition into the role by the hair and make-up department fitting James with multiple wigs from episode to episode, a prosthetic forehead piece, fake eyebrows, fake teeth, fake breasts and blue contact lenses.

The story follows the romance from the couple’s first meeting in a club, just as Anderson does a ‘tell all’ during a girls night out with her girlfriends, and swears off ‘bad boys.’ Lee pursues Anderson until she relents and eventually agrees to marry him in a whirlwind romance from the Palm trees of LA to the beaches of Mexico.

Sebastian Stan changes his hair to play Tommy Lee. Stan also has tattoos, nose rings, nipple rings attached, and is fitted with a prosthetic animatronic penis for a nude scene.

The series has nude scenes in one bedroom episode, and in a visit to a porn studio in another episode, but the series otherwise stays away from any gratuitous sex or sexual exploitation other than the story revolving around the sex tape.

James does a good job developing the character, and after an episode or two, she does such a good job in the leading character role, that she creates a separation from her previous supporting roles in The Dig (2021) and Darkest Hour (2017).

Stan also creates a biopic character much more stylized than in his previous roles in I, Tonya (2017), with Margot Robbie, Destroyer (2018) with Nicole Kidman, and Black Swan (2010) with Natalie Portman.

Stan does a good job costarring with James and with other leading women by providing more than a supporting character but at the same time, not dominating screen time or providing overbearing acting in scenes.

The sex video is released into the public after a fee dispute with a carpenter as Lee tries to complete renovations and redesigns of the renovation on his mansion. Seth Rogen plays carpenter Rand Gauthier who steals a portable safe uncovered in the work area as compensation for unpaid wages and confiscated tools.

Gauthier’s world forever changes when he discovers the sex tape inside the safe, long with cash and a gun. Gauthier just happened to already have connections with porn producer Milton Owen Ingley to whom he pitches the bootleg release of the sex tape.

Directors Craig Gillespie uses good and bad karma as a narrative device, showing how the theft and release of the sex tape initially made Gauthier feel good by giving Lee bad karma for mistreating him.

Rogen does a good job though of showing how the bad karma comes around to overturn his newly found fortune as the sex tape producer. Gauthier must first come to terms with the bad feelings of discovering bootleg sales of his stolen video and a general loss of control of the product, as bad karma for trying to profit from the initial robbery.

Everything goes sideways, even the little details, as Gouthier finds himself floundering inside a tank of entertainment sharks.

Gillespie, who directs three episodes, is known for directing Cruella (2021) and I, Tonya (2017). Lake Bell directs two episodes, and is known for television acting, while television director Gwyneth Horder-Payton directs two episodes (also known for The Americans (2013-2018) and Hannah Fidell directs one episode.

Anderson had risen to fame after appearing on the cover of Playboy in February 1990 and then reappearing for the magazine several times over the years. Anderson also is known for her role on Baywatch (1992-1997).

The series illustrates in part how the legal system showed little remorse for Anderson as the entertainment industry essentially profits one way or another from the sex video being in the public domain.

Nick Offerman is cast well as Uncle Milte, the porn producer, as is Andrew Dice Clay as Louis “Butchie” Peraino, Taylor Schilling as the port actress Erica Boyer and Fred Hechinger as Seth Warshavsky.

Hechinger plays the unscrupulous profiteer, who becomes the ultimate winner of publishing control over the sex video by using a combination of unethical business dealings with an understanding of the legal loopholes in copyright and publishing law.

The 8 part series is an interesting and entertaining look inside an important pop culture event, in part because the producers focus on a finite time frame around a singular event without attempting a biographical retrospective of the leading characters.

The scenes transition seamlessly while the episodes are well timed, without messy cliffhanger endings.

Pam and Tommy is a Hulu project streaming on Disney+ in Canada.