HBO decided to take on the task of telling the story of the last six years of the tobacco heiress’ life and her unconventional relationship with her butler, Bernard Lafferty. Part of the story is based on fact, the audience is told at the beginning, “some of it is not.” This caveat gives the network leeway to take a story that attracted loads of headlines in real life and embellish it for art’s sake. The teleplay has impressive star power with Oscar winner Susan Sarandon as Duke and Oscar nominee Ralph Fiennes as Lafferty. Bernard and Doris introduces us to an aging but still feisty woman, who manages her staff and her finances with an iron hand. In the opening scene, Duke fires her current butler for serving her cantaloupe to cold.
Despite the obvious tenderness in the relationship and Doris’ ability to overlook some of Lafferty shortcomings, she still remained suspicious of Bernard’s motives despite his claims that “I just want to take care of you.” While her lingering mistrust is obvious just by virtue of her personality, director Bob Balaban and writer Hugh Costello, fail to dig very deeply into why. The story suffers in part because we know so little about Bernard. We know he had a drinking problem and he once worked for Elizabeth Taylor and singer Peggy Lee. However, Bernard and Doris moves at such a fast clip that we never get a sense of whether Doris believed Lafferty was after her money in some way.
Without the burden of having to tell a story solely based on fact, both lead actors are able to indulge in their craft. Susan Sarandon gets to chew scenery at every turn, while Ralph Fiennes slowly morphs into a semi-drag queen as the teleplay moves along. The two actors do get to show off their impressive dramatic acting abilities in a few long, quiet scenes where the characters discuss their lives. Unfortunately, these scenes also expose some major holes in the script. It is during these scenes where the audience might have wanted to learn more about Bernard Lafferty.
The fact that some of Bernard and Doris is not all based on truth is evident in the casting. Doris Duke was about seventy-four when Bernard Lafferty came to work for her in 1987, obviously Ms. Sarandon is quite a bit younger and from the pictures I’ve seen, Bernard looked more like a heavier Phillip Seymour Hoffman than the debonair looking Fiennes. As long as you don’t take Bernard and Doris as the full and true story of the pair, you’ll likely enjoy the acting and camp value to be found in this teleplay.
The DVD of Bernard and Doris is presented in anamorphic widescreen. The audio is presented in English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and Spanish 2.0. Subtitles are available in English, French and Spanish. The picture and audio are both crisp and clear.
Bernard and Doris includes a commentary by director Bob Balaban in which he talks about shooting the movie and putting the cast together. He also tells a few anecdotes about Doris Duke others shared with him. The featurette, “Growing Up Rich: The Real Doris Duke” (9:43) narrated by Balaban, is a short cursory look at the life of Doris Duke. This featurette will give you some basic facts, but no real depth.
