The debut of writer and director
Jerry Schatzberg, this cinema verite drama won accolades for the Golden Globe-nominated performance of lead actress
Faye Dunaway. Dunaway stars as Lou Andreas Sand, a former fashion model who has retreated to her seaside cottage and is being interviewed by Aaron Reinhardt (
Barry Primus), a photographer and filmmaker who helped make her famous and with whom she was once involved. Aaron wants to make a movie about Lou's rise from rags to riches but as Lou recalls it, her seemingly glamorous existence was anything but a Horatio Alger tale. In an addled fog, Lou struggles to recite a shocking litany of casual sex and rape, drug and alcohol abuse, and the anger of her lesbian mentor Paula Galba (
Viveca Lindfors) when her romance with wealthy boyfriend Mark (
Roy Scheider) nearly led to marriage. Her career deteriorating, Lou even attempted suicide. A former fashion photographer himself, Schatzberg was an apt choice for director of this melodramatic portrait of the industry's ugly underbelly. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide