Bernard and Doris
June 2008 Reviewed by: Mischa Hayek Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Bernard and Doris is a fictional account of the real relationship between heiress Doris Duke (Susan Sarandon) and her effete Irish butler Bernard Lafferty (Ralph Fiennes) during the last six years before her death at 80 in 1993.

By all accounts, Duke lived a unique life. The heiress to the American Tobacco Co. fortune, she inherited over $100 million in 1925 and was labeled the richest girl in the world. She married twice -- both were failures -- but she had numerous affairs and hob-knobbed with some of the richest and most influential people in America, including President Kennedy and the first lady. She met Mahatma Gandhi, took surfing lessons from Duke Kahanamoku, became an expert gardener and orchid specialist, to name just a few of her many interests and activities. Duke was also a great philanthropist, giving much of her fortune to charity over the years. Though she was often in the limelight because of her enormous wealth, she was a private person who was never desirous of public attention.

One does not learn much of the above information from watching this movie. Director Bob Balaban’s story, scripted by Hugh Costello, begins at the time Duke met Bernard Lafferty when she was approximately 74 years old. Much of the private interaction between the two is pure speculation. Lafferty, approximately 32 years younger than his employer, only became a public figure when it was revealed that he inherited $5 million upon Duke’s death and was named a co-executor of her $1.3 billion estate.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) claims that Balaban’s film, after being shown at a film festival, was sent directly to cable television rather than premiering in movie theaters. I suspect it is because Balaban sheds very little light upon how Doris and Bernard became who they were, and we are left unsatisfied by the story. Balaban might have had some inside information since his aunt partied and traveled with Doris Duke and was actually left $5 million in her will. However, anything that might have better explained Duke and Lafferty was left from the story.

The acting is first rate -- in particular Fiennes as the constantly accommodating gay butler Lafferty. Sarandon is good as usual; I have never seen her give a bad performance. However, she plays a woman at least 25 years younger than the real Doris Duke. Consequently, both Duke’s love life and the dynamics of her relationship with Lafferty as depicted by Balaban and writer Hugh Costello might be quite inaccurate. I suspect that in real life Duke was a little more sexually restrained in her later life and Lafferty possibly looked after her as a doting son looks after his aging mother.

Fortunately, a short but good summary of Doris Duke’s life can be found in the ten-minute featurette "Growing Up Rich: The Real Doris Duke Story" narrated by Balaban and included in this DVD release. Balaban also provides an optional audio commentary to Bernard and Doris that is also quite informative.

DVD sound and picture quality are just acceptable. I expected better given how recently this film was made. Though the level of image detail is adequate, it lacks any sort of punch or polish, as though the film is simply standard made-for-TV fare. In fact, it looks a lot like My Boy Jack, a made-for-TV movie reviewed last month. The sound of Bernard and Doris is marginally better -- dialogue intelligibility is very good and there’s a credible sense of space created whenever the movie calls for it. All in all, though, nothing really special -- much like the film itself.

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