Pamela, a Love Story review: Meet the woman behind the caricature that is Pamela Anderson

4/5

Story: Pamela, a Love Story is a documentary about the life of actor and Playboy star Pamela Anderson, with never-before-seen archival footage and personal journals. Set in the present day, it is narrated by Pamela, with inputs from those closest to her — her mother and sons, Brandon and Dylan Lee. 

Review: Pamela, a Love Story is the latest in a line of documentaries in which celebrities are taking control of their life stories that have so far been told by others with no intimate connection to them, giving you a glimpse into parts of their lives that have so far not been revealed. Those who grew up in the 1990s will remember Pamela Anderson as a sensation back then. Everything she did made headlines, and this documentary gives a glimpse of the real person — an emotional woman who only ever sought love, lived life in the moment, not overthinking anything (she even says that thinking is overrated), and did things mostly for the experience of doing them. And how one incident changed everything for her.

The documentary, set in the present day with Pamela living in the small Canadian town where she grew up, gives you an intimate look into her troubled childhood with an alcoholic father, a mother who chose to remain in an abusive relationship, being molested and then raped as a 12 year old, her rise to fame, her breast implants, her marriage to rocker Tommy Lee, their infamous sex tape, and how things began to fall apart for her from thereon. All of this is revealed through Pamela’s many personal tapes and diary entries, in which she has carefully chronicled her life. 

While the documentary shows you that the Baywatch star did not live an easy life, what is refreshing is that Pamela, who has lived almost her entire life as a sex symbol, is extremely aware that she is being made into a caricature and even gives into it, playing the part that everyone has decided for her. While people have always poked fun at her for her many personal misadventures — being married and divorced several times, her sex tape, and dealing with being stereotyped as nothing more than a sex symbol — Pamela is not a victim. She says that she wouldn’t have survived all the situations in her life had she cared about what people thought.

Despite showing a very human and emotional side to the pop icon, the documentary, as the name suggests, is about Pamela and her lifelong search for love. Her son, Dylan, sums it up perfectly when he says about his mother: "She loves falling in love. Her favourite thing in the world is falling in love. And she loves the idea of falling out of love, too." 

Verdict: Pamela, a Love Story will appeal to those who have grown up in the 90s and were witness to the media frenzy that Pamela Anderson’s life was. It is Pamela like you have never seen her before. You get an inside look at how she dealt with all of life's curve balls, even agreeing to be mocked in order to use it for good — to promote the cause of PETA. One can’t help but feel a sense of solicitude for Pamela when you see that her one true love is the person that she knows she can’t be with, and that perhaps the future that she saw for herself as a young woman is perhaps her life’s truth — that she will grow old with her parents. But what stands out most is that despite everything that she has been through, Pamela Anderson is a woman who lives her life on her own terms and will probably never stop pursuing her happily ever after.