The Movie

If you're a hardcore Gia fan, the HBO movie leaves you pretty baffled and disappointed. Since I discovered Gia through the movie, I originally thought it was an amazing story and loved everything about it. However, after I read Thing of Beauty, watched the E! True Hollywood Story, watched The Self-Destruction of Gia, and visited countless websites, I now find it pretty difficult to sit through. It's still a decent portrayal of her life, but there's far too much "Hollywoodlized" about it, which is ironic since Gia's life doesn't need any twists and rewriting to make it more dramatic. While changes were made for convenience (all of Gia's lovers combined into one fictional woman, Linda), others were needless (Monique from Elite being portrayed as a ruthless, evil male agent).

The biggest flaw in this movie is the length of it. 120 minutes is not nearly enough time to portray Gia correctly, and everything feels really, really rushed. There's also the fact they included these odd narrations from Angelina reading from non-existent diaries/fairytales supposedly by Gia. They symbolize Gia's life and her view of others, but they are so pointless, and other times, lame.

Two things that really irk me--and this is mainly because I'm being overly critical as a Gia fan--is Angelina's hairstyle at the beginning and her two tattoos. I don't understand why they didn't cover her tattoos with makeup, especially since Gia had none. And, the hair, is just odd and very "un-Bowie" compared to her actual Bowie-style hair when she was a teenager.

Two things I do enjoy about this movie are: Angelina's performance and the reenactment of photo shoots and the ABC interview. I can never help getting choked up when Angelina cries in the scene where she begs Kathleen to stay. It's very emotional, and it really fits the description some of Gia's acquaintances described her cries when at Eagleville: "Gia's crying was almost like it could click off other people's crying. It was a deep, sobbing-type cry. She would cry in group and other women would cry. It was just this immense pain that would just sort of come out, and it would leave a lot of her peers feeling real helpless, like there was nothing you could do to take away all of this. It was like she had tons of bricks on her."

The photo shoots in the movie are very well-done and they really do remind you perfectly of the actual photos they are representing. Some of the photo shoots are exaggerated, others made up, but most are very accurate. Below is a collaboration of some and the real photos they represent.

The movie very, very vaguely hints at these photos being the ones that caught Wilhelmina's attention, but if the viewer is unaware of that fact then it easily slips the mind. In the movie, an unknown and unnamed character is the photographer, but in reality, these were Maurice Tannenbaum's photographs.

Featured in French Vogue, these photographs were taken by Helmut Netwon. In the movie, this is one of the first photo shoots depicted. Notice that in the movie they only use one of Gia's actual outfits.

A number of Christian Dior's ads exclusively featured Gia, and below was one of the main ones, which reads: "In command of the elements with an umbrella from the Christian Dior collection. Reigning is Your Dior."

The July 1979 issue of Cosmopolitan. In the movie, the bathing suit is purple for some reason, and after going to therapy, two girls are shown staring at this issue while questioning whether it is Angelina-Gia or not.

The movie depicts the ABC 20/20 interview. Angelina does an amazing impersonation of the moment, and the lines are direct quotes. Notice how the outfit is entirely different, a change probably made so Angelina would look more attractive.

Gia's very last cover of Cosmopolitan by Scavullo is depicted in the movie. Thankfully, they do not replace Scavullo with a character. Although exaggerated a bit, the movie shows Scavullo instructing Gia to sit on her hands so she could hide the track marks on her arms. Again, the outfit is altered in the movie.