Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Anna Nicole Smith: You Don’t Know Me’ on Netflix, a Biodoc That’s More Exploitation Than Revelation

Anna Nicole Smith: You Don’t Know Me (now on Netflix) kind of set itself up for failure with that title, didn’t it? Sixteen years after the Playboy Playmate, Guess? jeans model and reality-TV star died of a drug overdose at age 39, we get a documentary that pretty much promises greater insight into the REAL Anna Nicole Smith, the woman behind the tabloid headlines and litigation scandals. Untouchable director Ursula Macfarlane tackles this difficult endeavor, rounding up archival footage and a true rogue’s gallery of talking heads – siblings, relatives, friends, hangers-on, reality show “characters,” tabloid “journalists,” lawyers (so many lawyers!), etc. – in an attempt to piece together a well-rounded biography of a woman who, I’m afraid to say, at this point may be forever unknowable. 

ANNA NICOLE SMITH: YOU DON’T KNOW ME: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: “Adored by millions, loved by few.” That’s how one broadcaster summed up Anna Nicole Smith in the wake of her death, a harshly worded, but painfully honest phrase that immediately endears us to the woman who was an undeniably beautiful, outrageous and complicated bundle of contradictions whose life sometimes eerily parallels Marilyn Monroe’s. She was born Vickie Lynn Hogan in tiny Mexia, Texas, outside Houston, and, in video that one assumes was culled from a Playboy bio, she gives us a brief tour of the town, wearing skimpy outfits and posing seductively alongside meager landmarks. Her father was out of the picture, her mother raised her and she lived with an aunt for some time; her uncle says she craved attention, and used to practice her cheerleader routines in the front yard. She dropped out of school, married young, had a child – her son Daniel – young, divorced young.

Then she moved to Houston and began working as a stripper. A woman identified only as “Missy” with the subtitle “friend” shares details of those days; she was a fellow dancer who says Vickie was nervous at first but quickly became a hot commodity in the club. One of Vickie’s regular customers was J. Howard Marshall, a sad, 80-something-year-old billionaire widower who bought her a house and a car and, as we hear in old recordings of phone calls, cared for her and wanted to protect her. Was the affection mutual? Yeah, maybe! Home movies – some apparently shot by Missy – show the two of them interacting earnestly, and it seems genuine, not just for the camera. Missy says she had a pet name for Vickie: “Nicky.” Missy moved in and, after Playboy called and her career took off, helped take care of Daniel. Missy paints a portrait of Vickie as a devoted and loving mother; she adds that she was Vickie’s first female lover, and that they had a robust sexual relationship. “I was in love with her,” Missy says, her matter-of-factness tinged with melancholy.

Missy would hang on during the early ups and downs of her friend-slash-lover’s fame (you get the feeling she was a de-facto personal assistant), the first of which was breast enhancement surgery. Not an unusual thing for an eventual media sexpot, but it’s significant for being Vickie’s introduction to prescription painkillers, her addiction to which would become a sad recurring theme of her life. It was also the first step of her transformation to Anna Nicole Smith, a name she adopted in concert with her first Playboy shoot, which led to modeling gigs, TV appearances, movie roles and all the mixed-emotion stuff that comes with blinding fame. This is when the commentary by weirdos begins dominating the documentary: Attorneys, Anna Nicole’s doctor, goofball supporting personalities from The Anna Nicole Show, a paparazzi photographer, a tabloid writer. They’re all dishy and gossipy in a somber kind of way; her long-estranged brother and a former bodyguard come off as genuine. And the narrative rolls on through the stuff that saturated the zeitgeist in the ’90s and ’00s. Her drug overdose. Her marriage to Marshall, who died and prompted a legal battle between his son and Anna Nicole over claims to the estate. Her unusual relationships with other men. Her love/hate relationship with the paparazzi. And of course, her tragic, untimely death.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: You can’t help but draw comparison to two other blonde-bombshell Netflix docs seeking to reframe their subjects in a new light: The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes (which hews closest to You Don’t Know Me) and Pamela Anderson vanity/self-reclamation project Pamela, a Love Story.

Performance Worth Watching: The documentary wouldn’t have much to go on without Missy, who seems to have known Anna Nicole the best of everyone interviewed here (several key potential interviewees, including her daughter Dannielynn Birkhead and attorney Howard K. Stern, don’t participate) and offers extensive, reasonably credible character testimony.  

Memorable Dialogue: Playboy editor Marilyn Grabowski: “Fame is something that people strive for, but the other side of that coin is that fame finds people and won’t let ’em go.”

Sex and Skin: Archival footage and still photos of Anna Nicole topless and/or nude.

Our Take: Verdict: Still don’t know her, probably never will, especially with this assemblage of interviewees, who are trapped in a linear narrative that, at best, points at some truths about Anna Nicole Smith, without really landing on any. Linear, save for a key piece of information that Macfarlane withholds so there’s a medium-sized whopper of a twist at the end – a reveal that, earlier in the film, would’ve been an added wrinkle in this sketch of Smith’s character, but at the end, it undermines a bunch of stuff that came before it. It’s frustrating to watch You Don’t Know Me meander around the substance of Smith’s heart, her moral center, and come to a smudgy conclusion: It’s complicated!

And now that she’s not around to defend herself or substantiate any of this, we’re left scrutinizing the talking heads here: A possibly drunk uncle, some “friends” offering mediocre insights, the lawyer representing Marshall’s son who shredded her character in court and cruelly shares the following cruel, highly partisan conclusion about her: “She didn’t lose (the court case) because she was a gold digger. She lost because of who she was.” This guy. Show of hands: Who likes the person who defends a billionaire from giving up some of his money to his father’s ex-wife? Anyone? Anyone? Nobody? OK. Now, who’s willing to accept that the affection between a voluptuous Playboy model and a very rich, wheelchair-bound old man might be genuine? A few of you – the romantics, the non-cynics. It’s unusual, sure, but plausible, and their relationship endured for a few years. A better documentary might focus more on this big, glaring question. As it stands, the film lands in the general vicinity of being sympathetic with Anna Nicole, then haphazardly poses the question that she might have been capable of lying and manipulating people. Conclusion? It’s complicated!  

Also, what’s the deal with her doctor? He wears his scrubs for sit-down interviews, so we know he’s legit. Good job, doc. Then he dishes on enough of Anna Nicole’s medical history – a lot of it having to do with prescription drug abuse – that anyone concerned about her privacy might object to. Is anyone concerned about her privacy here? Is it OK that sensitive information gets dredged up in the quest for some gossipy, half-assed, reenactment-riddled, stock-footage-addled cautionary tale about fame and addiction? It feels disrespectful even before Macfarlane drops in wholly unapologetic commentary by scummy tabloid hacks and predatory paparazzi. Aren’t these people part of the problem – a problem exacerbated by the crass sexist public commentary of the time (cue a clip of Howard Stern and his cronies organizing a pool to guess Anna Nicole’s weight)? Then again, does the documentary ever establish a point-of-view? That’s right – it doesn’t. It’s little more than exploitation tempered slightly by the dour air of tragedy. Regardless of how you feel about Anna Nicole Smith, there’s the nagging sense that she deserved to be treated better then and now. 

Our Call: Anna Nicole Smith: You Don’t Know Me is too sleazy and slipshod to do its subject any kind of justice. SKIP IT. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.