America The Beautiful (2008)
Average Rating: 6/10
Reviews Counted: 31
Fresh: 21 | Rotten: 10
This doc doesn't expose any new territory about our unattainable standards of beauty, but does manage to entertain with an effective and accessible tone by filmmaker/subject Darryl Roberts.
Average Rating: 5.4/10
Critic Reviews: 14
Fresh: 7 | Rotten: 7
This doc doesn't expose any new territory about our unattainable standards of beauty, but does manage to entertain with an effective and accessible tone by filmmaker/subject Darryl Roberts.
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Average Rating: 3.7/5
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Movie Info
Looking at the cover of popular fashion magazines and examining the lengths that young girls will go to in order to achieve "perfection," it's easy to see why many people believe that America has developed an unhealthy obsession with beauty. In this documentary, filmmaker Darryl Roberts offers deeper insight into this observation by speaking with everyone from advertising and fashion professionals to average people on the street in an attempt to discover precisely why some people are willing to
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All Critics (31) | Top Critics (14) | Fresh (22) | Rotten (10) | DVD (2)
Despite the occasional flash of insight, and a few semi-shocking factoids, most women are going to find this movie roughly as illuminating as a remedial math class might be for a Nobel-prize winning physicist.
Top CriticIn the documentary America the Beautiful, Roberts explores the cult of beauty in the United States and mostly succeeds in unmasking the flaws of fetishizing skin-deep beauty.
With so many pointless detours ripping you away, the film feels as lamely digressive as the proverbial one-track guy whose head won't stop turning as each new temptation walks by.
Unexpectedly witty and affecting.
America the Beautiful provides plenty of food for thought, and Roberts' passion for the subject shines through.
Interesting but messy.
Probing docu about society's obsession with looks.
Scathing documentary indicts fashion industry for America's unhealthy obsession with beauty.
America's obsession with beauty is the subject of filmmaker Darryl Roberts wide-ranging investigative documentary that shows how beauty product manufacturers manipulate the public.
The film's examination of our beauty-obsessed culture--however familiar--remains unfortunately necessary.
[Director] Roberts has a point of view, yes, but he also has a curiosity that drives him and the movie. Lucky are those who go along for the ride.
Perhaps in future exposes Roberts will uncover that ice is cold and furnaces hot.
trenchant but not mean-spirited and often hilarious. Roberts approaches the subject with an attitude that is genuinely inquisitive, often bemused, and sometimes shocked, but never judgmental, at least not in his interviewing style
Intercutting the costs of American women's chase-after-beauty story (suggesting much waste and futility) with Gerren's personal one never quite blends into an organic whole.
Roberts raises interesting questions, but most of the info is familiar and there's no systematic or comparative perspective to illuminate our culture's obssession with beauty vis-a-vis other wealthy media-saturated countries, which made Sicko a good docu
Unlike other documentarians who put themselves in front of the camera, Roberts is an affable screen presence.
Well intentioned but futilely diffuse.
For every unsubtle moment ... there are two or three that forcefully resound.
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Foreign Titles
- America the Beautiful (DE)
- America the Beautiful (UK)
