Beauty gouged out the eye of this beholder

First off, I can't believe that any one could conceivably make a film this bad. I don't care how much money you have to waste, and I especially don't care that you have people like Minnie Driver and Bridget Wilson willing to flaunt their cleavages for the camera. Sally Field, in her directorial debut, has failed miserably. Sprinkled liberally with all the worst clichŽs possible, Beautiful, no question about it, is a horrendously ugly film.

Minnie Driver plays Ramona Hibbard, a dewy-eyed misfit from a dysfunctional family who has aspirations to become the next Miss America. Why a talented actress like Driver would want to waste her time on this train wreck is completely beyond my comprehension. Along with her best friend, Ruby, played by an annoying Joey Lauren Adams, Mona makes her way to the top through backstabbing and sabotaging her competitors. After a particularly vicious episode in which she glued her rival JoJo's hand to a burning baton, Mona is disqualified from competing in the county. Most unfortunately for her, she also discovers that she's pregnant, therefore disqualifying her from competing in any beauty pageant. Ruby, being the sweet, kind-hearted thing she is, adopts the baby Vanessa (the Pepsi girl Hallie Kate Eisenberg), allowing Mona to continue her trek to gloriously oh-so-wonderful beauty stardom.

Pop! I felt a nerve tweak in the back of my neck from the massive cringe I suffered through the rest of the movie. After being crowned Miss Illinois, Mona tries to outdo Miss Texas (Bridget Wilson) who was hospitalized for giving marrow to her foster sister in meaningless altruism. One particular scene in which she carts a pregnant woman to the hospital in a shopping cart full of marshmallows (no, it doesn't make more sense when you actually see it) had me gawking in dumbfounded amazement at the brazen act of courage which it must have taken for the producers to actually put the scene on film. As Mona fights Joyce the TV journalist (a newly resurrected JoJo thirsty for revenge) and other silicone-enhanced plastic barbie dolls in her quest towards "true beauty," I continued to be repeatedly shocked into a state of coma by amazing feats of horrific taste. Some of the lines had me hiding behind the seat in front of me in complete and total embarrassment. Genuine tears of suppressed emotional trauma were running down my cheeks as a surprised Mona, with her newly claimed daughter in her arms, steps forward to receive her crown. It was literally painful to watch.

Even if you have eight bucks you wish to throw away your money in a random act of senseless frivolity, don't, and I repeat, do not go see this movie. Give your money to the fund for cancer-stricken endangered monkeys in South Africa or something like that. Spare yourself the unnecessary pain. Go study. Sally Field wants you to leave Beautiful repeating the mantra, "It's what's on the inside that counts."

All I have to say in response is, "Gag me."

BEAUTIFUL

directed by

Sally Field

starring

Minnie Driver, Hallie Kate Eisenberg

Destination Films

directed by

Sally Field

starring

Minnie Driver, Hallie Kate Eisenberg

Destination Films