Lifetime’s Brittany Murphy biopic, The Brittany Murphy Story, premiered Saturday night to largely negative reviews from TV critics.

The Brittany Murphy Story chronicles the late movie star’s struggle to break into Hollywood, through her rise and success and into her troubled final years. Starring as Murphy in the made-for-TV biopic is Last Man Standing’s Amanda Fuller, while Adam Hagenbuch plays Murphy’s onetime boyfriend and Just Married costar Ashton Kutcher.

Brittany Murphy Biopic Reviews

Murphy’s father Angelo Bertolotti has chastised Lifetime and slammed its attempt at recreating his daughter’s life and career. Critics, like Bertolotti, have found the movie distasteful and a poor representation of the late actress. Furthermore, Fuller’s performance has been panned for being flat and seeming like she simply read off the page. The production value has also taken a hit.

“Here’s what you need to know to understand how truly shitty Lifetime’s The Brittany Murphy Story is: it opens with sad tweets from celebrities responding to her death, its storyline is reminiscent of both the nerd narrative of Lifetime’s Saved by the Bell movie and a ’90s teen makeover movie, and Ashton Kutcher is the only person who comes out looking good. Yes, in a story about Brittany Murphy’s life and death, Kutcher is the only redeeming character.” – Pilot Viruet, Flavorwire

“As bad as career opportunities got for late actress Brittany Murphy, at least she never had to make something like “The Brittany Murphy Story” — a bottom-feeding slice of tacky TV movie exploitation that transforms a true Hollywood tragedy into tedious trash. A misleading ad campaign stirred buzz that this Lifetime premiere might milk the mysterious circumstances of Murphy’s untimely passing for armchair murder mystery, but there’s nothing quite so salacious at work in the final product. Instead, the telepic’s more pedestrian offenses include embarrassing scripting, awkward performances and threadbare production values.” – Geoff Berkshire, Variety

“That truly atrocious interpretation of Alicia Silverstone in ‘Clueless' is representative of the care, fineness and budgeting that went into the making of ‘The Brittany Murphy Story,’ a movie so underwhelming it makes last year's Anna Nicole Smith biopic seem like a masterpiece,” Time's Laura Stampler wrote in her review. “The film was shot in 16 days, and it seems like less time was spent writing the script. 'The Brittany Murphy Story' isn't guilty of smearing the actress’ memory. Its crime is more insidious: It makes the young, talented actress seem entirely forgettable.” – Laura Stampler, Time

"Much like Lindsay Lohan's Elizabeth Taylor movie, Lifetime's "The Brittany Murphy Story" was just bad bad — not campy enough to be fun, but so miscast and poorly written that it wasn't good, either. It wasn't sure what it wanted to be — a murder mystery? A biopic? A love story? And even after watching, who are we supposed to believe is responsible for her death?” – Jean Bentley, Zap2It