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- Beautiful"
(Reviewed September 3, 2000)
- This is a mostly dumb but sometimes sweet movie that can't make up its mind whether it wants to be "To Die For" or a sappy Disney TV movie. Maybe first-time director Sally
Field was confused. The movie's first mistake was making the young actresses (Colleen Rennison and Jacqueline Steiger) who (too briefly) play the teenage versions of the main characters more appealing
than their grown-up counterparts (Minnie Driver and the annoyingly Betty-Boop-voiced Joey Lauren Adams). Its second mistake was expecting audiences to suspend their disbelief to a ridiculous degree in
order for the plot to work. (Best example: We are expected to believe that no news organization would ferret out and instantly report the incredibly obvious information that a Miss Illinois heading to a Miss
America-type pageant has an illegitimate daughter. Moreover, we are expected to believe that no one would discover this information even though more-than-normal media attention already is focused on
contestant and kid because the woman impersonating the little girl's mother is involved in a high-profile "mercy killing" murder case!) Its third mistake was letting Minnie Driver mug and goof her way
through the film as if it were a broad farce, even though the rest of the characters and situations could have come from any movie-of-the-week melodrama.
Note: There is a nice cameo by former "Beverly Hills 90210" star Kathleen Robertson (who played Claire on that series), looking really great as Miss Tennessee. She looks somewhat undignified in a
dressing-room scene tugging on a pair of pantyhose, but then again, who wouldn't?
Back Row Grade: F
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