The Rose (1979) review

Rock goddess Mary Rose Foster (Bette Midler) is exhausted from touring but her manager Rudge (Alan Bates) demands the show continues (because he's making a ton of money off of her) - later, she hooks up with her chauffeur/bodyguard Dyer (Frederic Forrest) and they have a hectic affair, but eventually she's too much for him.  If you're going to make a movie "inspired" by the life of Janis Joplin, you'd do no better than casting an actual musical superstar in Midler - the concert scenes have a real kick to them and she's radiant on stage, but the rest of it is essentially a protracted suicide, with Bates popping up every so often to drive her even madder and get more indulgent with her vices: the pills, booze, etc.  It seems to chalk up Ms. Foster's woes to hometown trauma - and who knows if that football story is true - but that's also a little ... too simplistic (I hope if there's ever a real biopic about her it does a lot more research).  "I should have gone to college" she laments, but she would have dropped out after a semester ... or gotten kicked out.