At 102 years old, Rosalee Glass has lived a dramatic and tumultuous life. Born to a Jewish family in Warsaw in 1917, she survived the Holocaust and imprisonment in a Soviet gulag. After coming to the United States, she suffered the deaths of her husband and three of her children. But in her 80s, she strove to overcome an acute state of depression by plunging herself into piano, dancing, and acting lessons. Glass enjoyed a late-life career in TV commercials and won a beauty pageant at 94. For her 100th birthday, she wrote an autobiography and went dog-sledding in Alaska. Glass’s life would seem like an ideal subject for a documentary tribute, but unfortunately this film—created by the subject’s daughter, Lillian Glass—does not always do justice to the remarkable woman in the spotlight. Much of the time, Rosalee is talking directly to the camera, but while she is charming, the talking-head approach here cannot fully carry the film. Clips from old public domain Hollywood films are used to detail the challenges and issues she faced, most strangely dramatizing her married life in Warsaw by showing Cary Grant movie footage because Rosalee remarks that her husband “looked just like Cary Grant.” And in the final stretch of the film, the filmmaker inserts herself into the story, which feels like an intrusion. What should have been a compelling portrait is instead somewhat disappointing. Still, this should be considered a strong optional purchase. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)
Reinventing Rosalee
(2019) 80 min. DVD: $14.95. Random Media (avail. from www.amazon.com).
Reinventing Rosalee
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