THE BEAUTICIAN AND THE BEAST
A film review by Ben Hoffman
Copyright 1997 Ben Hoffman
The truth is I was not expecting the movie to be as good as it was. I can only take Fran Drescher (TV's "Nanny") for short bits. Whether it was Drescher or the director who slowed her down, it was all for the good and is largely responsible for the film being charming and funny. In a way some of the situations are reminiscent of The King and I, even to some of the comic posturing by the heartily disliked dictator, Boris Pochenko (Timothy Dalton), of the mythical Eastern European country of Slovetzia. . . . except that the humor here is different than in The King and I but frequently and surprisingly every bit as funny.
Joy Miller (Drescher) is a beautician and beauty teacher in the Borough of Queens, New York City. But Joy is sure that one day she will get the break she deserves and, surprise (!) it comes in the shape of Ambassador Grushinsky (Ian McNeice) from Slovetzia who is looking for a teacher. The dictator Pochenko, known in his country as The Beast is looking to change his image. He wants to be liked. How better than to engage a teacher to begin to mold his family and then him? The emissary knows that Fran is a teacher but he is unaware that her teaching consists of beauty hints.
Arriving in Slovezia, she is taken with the palatial luxury as well as its ruler. Follows some revolutionary intrigue, arrests, etc. and Fran has to teach Pochenko something about free speech and democracy. All, you will be happy to hear, turns out well. That it entertains all the way is another plus. Special mention should be made of teenager Lisa Jakub who is a deadringer for Isabella Rossellini.
Directed by Ken Kwapis.
2.75 Bytes
4 Bytes = Superb 3 Bytes = Too good to miss 2 Bytes = Average 1 Byte = Save your money
Ben Hoffman
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews