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Beautiful (2000)
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Reviews Counted:59
Fresh:9
Rotten:50
Average Rating:3.1/10
Consensus: Sally Field's directing debut suffers from an inconsistent tone, implausible script, and a protagonist that critics say is one of the most loathsome to come around in a long time.
Runtime: 1 hr 52 mins
Genre: Comedies
Box Office: $2,385,588
Synopsis: Mona (Colleen Rennison) is a 12-year-old who wants to be a beauty queen. And that's all she wants. She earns the money to fix her teeth and pay for pageant classes. She finds a friend, Ruby... Mona (Colleen Rennison) is a 12-year-old who wants to be a beauty queen. And that's all she wants. She earns the money to fix her teeth and pay for pageant classes. She finds a friend, Ruby (Jacqueline Steiger), who can make costumes. Mona grows up (and becomes Minnie Driver). And the grown-up Ruby (Joey Lauren Adams) is devoted to her so much so that when Mona inconveniently gets pregnant, Ruby solves the problem: Mothers can't enter beauty contests. Seven years later, Ruby is acting as Vanessa's (Hallie Kate Eisenberg) mother and looking after the single-minded Mona. Mona qualifies for the Miss America Miss finals. Then an elderly patient commits suicide at the nursing home where Ruby works. Ruby is accused. Who will look after Vanessa? Who will look after Mona? Mona and Vanessa head for the contest and, miracle of miracles, Mona actually starts thinking about her daughter. Sally Field makes her directorial debut with BEAUTIFUL. The odd family she has created in this comedy-drama consists of Driver as the self-centered Mona, Adams as the self-sacrificing Ruby, and eight-year-old Eisenberg--taking a break from Pepsi advertisements--as the most sensible and adult of the three. [More]
Starring: Minnie Driver, Colleen Rennison, Hallie Kate Eisenberg, Joey Lauren Adams
Starring: Minnie Driver, Colleen Rennison, Hallie Kate Eisenberg, Joey Lauren Adams, Kathleen Turner, Bridgette Wilson
Director: Sally Field
Director: Sally Field
Screenwriter: Jon Bernstein
Producer: John Bertolli, B.J. Rack
Composer: John C. Frizzell
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Reviews for Beautiful
This movie wants to have it both ways: to score points against beauty pageants and the cult of feminine beauty in our culture, but also to root for Mona. It doesn't work.
A movie with so many inconsistencies, improbabilities, unanswered questions and unfinished characters that we have to suspend not only disbelief but also intelligence.
The movie is so nasty to its mostly female characters that it feels harshly misogynist.
It manages to find an almost pitch-perfect accumulation of ill-matched tones, sheer grotesquerie, near-heroic absurdity and self-canceling folly.
Does it have to be so painful to watch? Every performance is gratingly awful, and all the roles are badly miscast.
Well, knock us over with a tiara, but first-time director Sally Field has actually made a likeable movie.
[Field] fails horribly to establish a consistent tone; we never know whether she’s going for laughs or melodrama.
A tedious ordeal, riddled with unlikable characters, recycled gags, and inane plot developments.
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 15% 15% | The Ugly Truth |
| 98% 98% | Up |
| 36% 36% | G.I. Joe: The Rise of … |
| 52% 52% | The Taking of Pelham 1… |
| 45% 45% | Ice Age: Dawn of the D… |
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 36% 36% | Angels & Demons |
| 68% 68% | Funny People |
| 25% 25% | Four Christmases |
| 45% 45% | Shorts |
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