To my eternal dismay, I tend to like camp more in theory than in practice. On paper, something like Valley of the Dolls sounds fun and lively and colourful (and I'll agree that the pastel sets and hammy performances do manage to provide some charm), but, as an actual viewing experience, I mostly just found the movie unpleasant and dull.
Those seem like preposterous adjectives given the subject matter and overall presentation, but I guess my problem is that the whole thing quickly gets bogged down by tedious pacing and coarse conflicts, both of which really kill the vibe. And it probably doesn't help that the structure's as loose as it is (especially since these three women barely appear to know each other), or that we never settle on a consistent tone.
Still, the energy does pick up every now and again (thanks mainly to the wonderfully miscast Patty Duke, whose cringy-yet-endearing performance keeps things from totally flatlining), and I can usually sense some melancholy underneath the kitsch, which lends a lot of much-needed weight. This isn't an awful movie, necessarily, but I'd argue that it ultimately suffers from being stuck in something of a no man's land: too dark to be fun, and too silly to be resonant.
Grade: C+
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