As funny as a jello salad
Drop Dead Gorgeous A Film Review By Michael Redman Copyright 1999 By Michael Redman
** (out of ****)
Back in prehistoric times, somewhere in the seventies, battles raged over beauty contests. Opponents accused the pageants of objectifying women. They said that parading the contestants in bathing suits like so many sides of beef lowered women to "sex objects".
Putting aside the discussion of whether being seen as sex object occasionally is a necessarily bad thing, the critics scored at least minor victories. The contests became more focused on talent and poise and less on the swimsuit competition.
Of course it is just a coincidence that the most talented women with the most poise always turn out to be hot babes.
Especially debatable are the teenage contests that encourage young women to engage in cut-throat competition with their friends to win the coveted title of "Miss Porkbelly".
Are the high school girls in Mount Rose, Minnesota eager to become "Miss Teen Princess America"? Are they willing to do almost anything necessary to win?
Yah, you betcha.
Former winner Gladys Leeman (Kirstie Ally) has raised her daughter Becky (Denise Richards) from birth to win this contest. Conveniently Gladys is the head of the local pageant committee. Some might say this gives Becky a head start, but it doesn't matter much. The Leemans are what passes for wealthy in the small town and always get what they want.
Becky's main competition is Amber Atkins (Kirsten Dunst), a talented ambitious girl from the wrong side of town. Her trailer-trash mother Annette (Ellen Barkin) wants her to win, but only because it would provide Amber a ticket out of Smallville.
When the contestants start getting knocked off, the competition takes a deadly turn. Not only are the girls putting Vaseline on their teeth to look good, but they're keeping a close watch on falling stage lights.
The film is presented in the increasing popular "mockumentary" format. A film crew is supposedly sent to Mount Rose to do a documentary on the event and we are watching the result.
While this concept worked well for "Spinal Tap" and others, here it's a bust. Not for minute do we believe this is a documentary. The production values are too high, improbable scenes are included and it looks exactly like what it is.
Beauty contests would seem the perfect fodder for comedy. The subject was treated well in the 1975 "Smile". Holly Hunter was hilarious in the 1989 "Miss Firecracker".
I laughed out loud about four times during this film -- a major accomplishment for any movie. Some of the lowest common denominator humor is undeniably funny.
But more often, the comedy falls flat. Taking a cue from "Fargo", director Michael Patrick Jann plays the blandness of Mount Rose's culture for laughs. They talk with accents, eat a lot of jello salads and hotdishes, collect balls of twine and brag about being the home of Minnesota's Oldest Living Lutheran (now deceased). Cigarettes dangle from most mouths. It's entertaining the first time, but repeated over and over, they lose whatever charm they originally possessed.
Many of the bits are aimed at easy targets. The hefty brother of one of the judges is mentally challenged and often runs into windows and loses his pants. He's even referred to as the "mental retard" several times.
The "slut" bits are mildly amusing at first, but also grow old rapidly. The white trash jokes wear just as badly.
Annette is burned in an explosion and has a beer can welded to her hand. Amber practices her tap dancing while applying makeup to stiffs in a mortuary. An important school function is the Lutheran Sisterhood Gun Club.
Far be it from me to say that there isn't room in the world for politically incorrect humor. But if it's going to be crass, it had better be funny. Some of the most hilarious films are decided non-pc and even resort to remarkably stupid jokes.
"Drop Dead Gorgeous" certainly has those two elements, it's just missing the comedy most of the time. The real beauty contests are much more hilarious.
(Michael Redman has written this column for somewhere around 24 years. He caught wind of a conspiracy at the "Bloomington Independent" to have only female writers in this women's issue, but was able to sneak this in. For the record, he is not a woman, but he likes them.)
[This appeared in the 7/29/99 "Bloomington Independent", Bloomington, Indiana. Michael Redman can be contacted at Redman@indepen.com]
-- mailto:redman@indepen.com This week's film review: http://www.indepen.com/ Film reviews archive: http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Michael%20Redman Y2K articles: http://www.indepen.com/
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