# Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)

### reviewed by
David N. Butterworth

    DROP DEAD GORGEOUS
    A film review by David N. Butterworth
    Copyright 1999 David N. Butterworth

    ***1/2 (out of ****)

The Beauty Pageant: an obvious comedic target, yes? Yet "Drop Dead Gorgeous" doesn't simply poke fun at the whole superficial, demeaning affair. It skewers it. It incinerates it, smacks it upside the head with a shovel, shoots it between the eyes, blows it up (not once but twice!), splatters it with paint and, for its crowning glory, vomits all over it.

It's the kind of movie in which no one is spared. The mentally challenged, bulimic, Asian, fat, lame, Lutheran, hospitalized, adopted, gay, and Adam West ("TV's Batman") all take it on the chin in the name of biting black comedy. It sounds like poor taste, but as poor taste goes it's remarkably good natured...and unbelievably funny.

I haven't laughed this hard in a movie since that segment of Jim Jarmusch's "Night on Earth" in which Giancarlo Esposito struggles to get across New York in Armin Mueller-Stahl's taxicab. Come to think of it, I haven't laughed as *long* as this before--for well over an hour I was doubled over in pain, my sides cramped from laughing so much. I was slapping my knees and roaring with delight. And the rest of the audience was slapping and roaring right along with me.

It's no small admission to say that "Drop Dead Gorgeous" is the funniest film I have ever seen.

Is there anything wrong with it? Yes. It runs out of steam in the last 15-20 minutes (but still secures some good belly laughs in the process). How could it not? But that gripe seems inconsequential in light of all the drop dead gorgeously-realized hysteria that has gone before.

In the small-town hamlet of Mount Rose, Minnesota ("yah, you betcha!"), the residents are abuzz. It's the 50th anniversary of the Miss Teen Princess America Pageant, sponsored by Sarah Rose Cosmetics, and a documentary film crew are in town covering the events. Maitre-d' of the contest is Gladys Leeman (Kirstie Alley), a former winner with a win-at-all-costs attitude. Gladys is convinced that her daughter Becky (Denise Richards, "Wild Things") will this year walk off with the coveted tiara. No one doubts her, since the Leemans are the wealthiest family in town. "When one of them goes to the bathroom, it's news."

If anyone can challenge Becky's claim to the throne, it's Amber Atkins (a perfect Kirsten Dunst). Amber lives in a trailer park with her beer-drinking, chain-smoking mother (Ellen Barkin; fabulous) and works at the local morgue, doing make-up jobs on the cadavers. Her talent is tap dancing and Amber, who has two role models in life (Mom and Diane Sawyer), "just wants to compete." Becky is more the "promote world peace" kind of competitor.

There are six additional entrants in the pageant and the film is a casting coup of bright, up-and-coming talent who are asked to endure humiliating situations. In spite of performing dog barks, cheerleading calisthenics, interpretive sign-languaged dance, and heartfelt passages from "Soylent Green," these young women act flawlessly.

The dress rehearsals, in-fighting, cringe-inducing choreography, back stabbing, and interviews with the contestants are all captured by the film crew as the pageant explodes in ridiculous style. To spoil any one of the myriad of jokes would be irresponsible.

"Drop Dead Gorgeous" is a sophisticated comedy, kind of like what "Waiting for Guffman" should have been. Writer Lona Williams (herself a former Minnesota beauty pageant contestant) and first-time director Michael Patrick Jann handle things absolutely beautifully and have created a near-perfect product in so doing; there's subtlety, smarts, and a lot of sickness going on here.

Gorgeous isn't quite the word I'd use to describe the film but it *is* drop dead hilarious.

    --
    David N. Butterworth
    dnb@dca.net

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