Beautiful

Rating:
Summary: Superb Chick Flick!!!
Review: "Beautiful" is definitely in my top 10 list of all time chick flicks. Why, you ask? A few reasons. 1. The movie has wonderful character development. We closely follow Mona (Minnie Driver) from being a struggling, yet insecure young girl up to where she is a struggling and even more insecure woman. Vanessa (Hallie Kate Eisenberg) has grown into a confident and emotionally secure young girl having had all of the loving and attention which Mona never had from her (Mona's) own mother. And Ruby (Joey Lauren Adams) ends up being the real "heroine" in the movie, raising Vanessa into a wonderful little girl and then, in effect being the understanding and caring "mother" to Mona to help Mona start to grow and mature emotionally. 2. The movie is well paced and has many tender moments, the most "tear-jerker" moment being the final hotel scene between Mona and Vanessa.
This movie should especially appeal to single parents (such as myself) who, for one reason or another had never had the opportunity to truly bond with their kids when they were young. My congratulations to Sally Field on an excellent movie!!

Rating:
Summary: Minnie Driver is great!
Review: "Beautiful" is the story about a girl, Mona, who centered all her life on pageant contests. She always wanted to become miss illinois and was ready to risk anything to get first prize. Since the beginning, she had one contest rule in mind: mothers and legal guardians are inelegible for miss america miss. Mona started developing a great career until the day she finds out she is pregnant and all her dreams would not come true. With the help of her best friend, she keeps the baby and pretends she is not the mother, so that she could still be elegible for the miss contest. Then she beomes a very self centered person, who does anything to get attention and really does not care about her family, until life teaches her some valuable lessons once again.

This film is great. In spite of being a little predictable, it is always nice to see minnie driver performing. It was also fun to see the miss america miss contest at the end, in a very old fashioned style. The rest of the cast is also doing great!

Rating:
Summary: Mind Numbing...
Review: ...The story line is boring and uninspiring. The little girls personality is the only thing that keeps this movie even moderately watchable.

Rating:
Summary: My Favorite Movie
Review: A poor girl (Driver) from a small town dreams of becoming Miss America, and works her way up through a variety of obstacles... will she make it to the big time?

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Look At One Woman's Quest for Success
Review: A very good film. Minnie Driver had no one to help her succeed in attaining her goals. It is so refreshing to see such a well-rounded and determined female character in movies today. She did want she wanted to do, and didn't ask for help.

Rating:
Summary: Best Movie of the Century!!!
Review: Acting, plot, and script were absolutely superb. Better than Basic Instinct or Saving Private Ryan. Should have won dozens of Oscars. A must own for everyone.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: All her life,Mona believed that if she could just win a beauty pageant she would feel special.It becomes a life-long goal,an obsession in fact.Then she falls pregnant.Not willing to give up her dream,she lets her best friend bring up her daughter as her own.But then,that very good friend is arrested,falsely accused of murder,and Mona is stuck looking after her own kid(how awful!)all while trying to become Miss.America.Soon,she may have to decide between a tiara and her own little girl.This is a really fun,enjoyable girls movie.

Rating:
Summary: What people will go through to become the most beautiful
Review: Beautiful, adj. 1. Having beauty; delighting the senses and mind. 5. The ideal of beauty.

So says Webster, and given that, Mona Hibbard of Naperville, Illinois does not embody that quality on the inside. Mona has had a drive to be beautiful and from her pre-teen years, has worked hard, getting her teeth straightened, going to a grace school, and befriending Ruby, who has learned to sew from her grandmother. From watching beauty pageants on TV, she herself enters a beauty pageant and wins for best costume. The trouble is, her parents are far from supportive, and she herself shuts them out of her life. Her mother keeps saying she's getting aggravated from her behaviour, and even when Mona gets a consolation medal reading "participant," she merely says that she didn't get anything. On the other hand, the egocentric Mona's no angel either. She has a room with posters full of beauty pageant memorabilia, and a sign on the door reading "knock first" When her mother asks her if she wants some pizza, Mona refuses to answer because her mother didn't knock first.

Years later, Ruby and Mona are firm friends. Ruby and her grandmother still help make costumes for Mona, who still has the same dream, and will do anything to get it. In one scene smacking of black humour and slapstick, she sabotages a rival's equipment when that girl steals Mona's routine and is lucky enough to go first. This has grave ramifications later on, which I won't reveal. However, when Mona discovers she's pregnant, it's bad news, because women who are mothers or legal guardians are disqualified from entering the Miss American Miss competition. But she's so desperate to prove herself beautiful, she has Ruby pose as the mother of her child, a girl named Vanessa, while she becomes her own child's aunt. This helps her win Miss Illinois, which makes her a contestant for Miss America Miss pageant. In the meantime, there are the expected public appearances to promote her.

However, fate plays a cruel trick on Ruby, leaving Vanessa in Mona's care, something neither is chuffed about. Mona sees her own daughter as A) an inconvenience, and B) someone to take photos of her to mold her image as a caring, heroic, role model. But what makes a real role model? Mona's "campaign slogan" is "empowering America's youth for a brighter America." A pity she doesn't embody that ideal toward her own soccer-loving seven year old daughter.

In Mallrats Joey Lauren Adams played the smarter advice-giving girlfriend to Claire Forlani. As Ruby, Adams is the hard-working, grounded, patient friend who works hard to help Mona reach her goal even to the extent of being the mother to Vanessa, and treating her like a real mother would, making this her best role since Chasing Amy. Hallie Kate Eisenberg (Vanessa) is quite the delight here as the very insightful girl who ends up being more mature and abler than her birth mother. Indeed, when she asks Mona how come she looks so much like her, it's more than just physical appearance, but more on personality. One only has to look at the way Mona's own mother treated her to see how Mona treats Vanessa, with lack of sympathy, support, and as somewhat of an inconvenience. Her other question to Mona, "where do I belong?" is something that Mona herself is struggling with, to belong somewhere. Adams and Eisenberg really make this movie worth it.

Actress Sally Fields' feature film directorial debut was much panned by critics, and perhaps it's Minnie Driver's character, who isn't that likeable until the final twenty minutes or so of the movie. All the same, one is aggravated by her egotistical self-centered behaviour, while at the same time wanting her to not only grow up, as Ruby tells her in a moment of exasperation, but to be, in the words of Webster, to become beautiful.

Rating:
Summary: What people will go through to become the most beautiful
Review: Beautiful, adj. 1. Having beauty; delighting the senses and mind. 5. The ideal of beauty.

So says Webster, and given that, Mona Hibbard of Naperville, Illinois does not embody that quality on the inside. Mona has had a drive to be beautiful and from her pre-teen years, has worked hard, getting her teeth straightened, going to a grace school, and befriending Ruby, who has learned to sew from her grandmother. From watching beauty pageants on TV, she herself enters a beauty pageant and wins for best costume. The trouble is, her parents are far from supportive, and she herself shuts them out of her life. Her mother keeps saying she's getting aggravated from her behaviour, and even when Mona gets a consolation medal reading "participant," she merely says that she didn't get anything. On the other hand, the egocentric Mona's no angel either. She has a room with posters full of beauty pageant memorabilia, and a sign on the door reading "knock first" When her mother asks her if she wants some pizza, Mona refuses to answer because her mother didn't knock first.

Years later, Ruby and Mona are firm friends. Ruby and her grandmother still help make costumes for Mona, who still has the same dream, and will do anything to get it. In one scene smacking of black humour and slapstick, she sabotages a rival's equipment when that girl steals Mona's routine and is lucky enough to go first. This has grave ramifications later on, which I won't reveal. However, when Mona discovers she's pregnant, it's bad news, because women who are mothers or legal guardians are disqualified from entering the Miss American Miss competition. But she's so desperate to prove herself beautiful, she has Ruby pose as the mother of her child, a girl named Vanessa, while she becomes her own child's aunt. This helps her win Miss Illinois, which makes her a contestant for Miss America Miss pageant. In the meantime, there are the expected public appearances to promote her.

However, fate plays a cruel trick on Ruby, leaving Vanessa in Mona's care, something neither is chuffed about. Mona sees her own daughter as A) an inconvenience, and B) someone to take photos of her to mold her image as a caring, heroic, role model. But what makes a real role model? Mona's "campaign slogan" is "empowering America's youth for a brighter America." A pity she doesn't embody that ideal toward her own soccer-loving seven year old daughter.

In Mallrats Joey Lauren Adams played the smarter advice-giving girlfriend to Claire Forlani. As Ruby, Adams is the hard-working, grounded, patient friend who works hard to help Mona reach her goal even to the extent of being the mother to Vanessa, and treating her like a real mother would, making this her best role since Chasing Amy. Hallie Kate Eisenberg (Vanessa) is quite the delight here as the very insightful girl who ends up being more mature and abler than her birth mother. Indeed, when she asks Mona how come she looks so much like her, it's more than just physical appearance, but more on personality. One only has to look at the way Mona's own mother treated her to see how Mona treats Vanessa, with lack of sympathy, support, and as somewhat of an inconvenience. Her other question to Mona, "where do I belong?" is something that Mona herself is struggling with, to belong somewhere. Adams and Eisenberg really make this movie worth it.

Actress Sally Fields' feature film directorial debut was much panned by critics, and perhaps it's Minnie Driver's character, who isn't that likeable until the final twenty minutes or so of the movie. All the same, one is aggravated by her egotistical self-centered behaviour, while at the same time wanting her to not only grow up, as Ruby tells her in a moment of exasperation, but to be, in the words of Webster, to become beautiful.

Rating:
Summary: Very Annoying For All Ms. Driver's Charming Song and Smile
Review: Comparison is inevitable. We had a biting satire of "Drop Dead Gorgeous." We had lovely Sandra in "Miss Congeniality." And we have Sally Field's director debut film starring Minnie Driver and Hallie Kate Eisenberg. You think the chances are it ends up with an enjoyable film. The result turns out to be ... No, it didn't.

The story's basic premise -- a mother who hides the fact that she has a daughter, fearing to have her entry into "Miss America Miss" beauty contest disqualified -- clearly comes from famous Vanessa L. William's case, in which she had to resign her crown because of her previous photos taken before her becoming Miss America. (See the daughter of Minnie Driver character is called "Vanessa," and once Ms. Williams's name is briefly mentioned in the film.) The writer expanded the idea, I imagine, and made a heroine of the film, who, in order to get the crown of the beauty pageant, denies her motherly emotions to her own daughter, giving the daughter to her best friend's hand, and pretending that she (her friend) is the real mother. Oh, no, please.

Moreover, the protagonist, with which we are supposed to sympathize, desperately chases the crown. Real desperate. For all Minnie Driver's charming smile and comic talent, and Joey Lauren Adams's good-natured portrayal of her friend, the film cannot be saved from being totally pathetic. Yes, I say frankly, I really disliked her. I am ready to cheer Ms. Williams, but as for the heroine of "Beautiful," I never felt like that. And though Ms. Eisenburg is certainly cute, and was good in films like "Paulie," here, it seems, she is only allowed to irritate us by yelling, running, jumping and kicking a ball.

All these problems come from the director. I don't want to be harsh, but it is true. We have these able cast, plus Kathleen Turner, Brdgitte L. Wilson, and even Ali Landry (real-life Miss America, but Amerians may remember Doritos Chips), but the film is often unpleasant, and doesn't seem to know what it wants to do. There are some funny scenes, but the film cannot fully use those good moments to carry on the potential power long, and the conclusion is too predictable. We know from the beginning that they should not exclude her from the contest on the ground that she has a child -- you know, it is 21th century. But the film's ending treats us as if we don't know that, to make the film very patronizing.

Maybe I should shut my mouth, and enjoy Minnie Driver's hectic journey to the crown. But I could not. The best moment of the film comes when Minnie Driver greatly surprises us by singing "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" on stage with splendid voice. That scene truely shines, but the film is then almost over.