Some of Me, Isabella Rossellini, 1997, Random House

In what appears to be a never ending struggle to become someone other than the daughter of a famous movie actress and movie director, Isabella Rossellini has included this autobiography as part of her arsenal of defiance. Some of Me is a rambling of Isabella's life, often flipping from tale to tale without care. For someone as alluring and seemingly refined as Isabella, paying particular attention to the Lancôme allure, this book reveals something no reader probably expects, Isabella is her own person, a human being in her own right. After reading Some of Me, I wondered how I could have made the mistake that Isabella would be like her mother, Ingred Berman. Of course Isabella is her own person, caught by people, like me, who thought otherwise. Isabella has strived to convince us of just that, she is who she is, Isabella.

Among the rambling tales of her life in Some of Me, Isabella often toys with the reader, telling lies, then recanting and apologizing for them later. She chooses subjects we as incessant readers need-to-know, her parents, filmography, husbands, and Lancôme. Each story and chapter a small statement of her need and desire to be Isabella, not so much an apology, but an explanation. This is a tell-it-like-it-is, no holds barred, eyebrow raising experience. By books end, the reader can piece together a picture that Isabella has lived under a shadow of who she isn't, but somehow she has made a life of her own and became who she is, Isabella Rossellini.

© Andrew W Franklin, 1997