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Beautiful
Metascore
23 out of 100

Generally unfavorable - based on 28 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 28
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 28
  3. Negative: 19 out of 28
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  1. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Paula Nechak
    67
    In the end, dark comedy drives the film, but it's overwhelmed by a desire to be liked, really liked.
  2. TNT RoughCut
    Reviewed by: Andy Klein
    60
    Generally engaging.
    All this critic's reviews
  3. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Desmond Ryan
    50
    To do this kind of satire successfully, you need the kind of merciless and unrelenting wit of films such as Gus Van Sant's "To Die For" or John Huston's "Prizzi's Honor."
    All this critic's reviews
  4. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Chris Kaltenbach
    50
    Unfortunately, whenever Beautiful threatens to work as parody, it veers uncomfortably into pop psychology.
    All this critic's reviews
  5. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Steve Simels
    50
    Sally Field has actually made a likeable movie.
  6. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Andy Klein
    50
    Generally engaging.
  7. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Thomas
    50
    This film's wise and compassionate view is that, for many young women of limited opportunities, winning a beauty contest represents their best hope.
  8. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Schickel
    50
    You don't quite believe that a smart woman would spend so much time on such a dumb mission.
  9. Film.com
    Reviewed by: Robert Horton
    40
    Beautiful is a mess, but not without interest.
  10. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    38
    Rarely does a movie go so thoroughly wrong in so many ways.
    All this critic's reviews
  11. San Francisco Examiner
    Reviewed by: G. Allen Johnson
    38
    SORRY, SALLY. I didn't like it. I really didn't like it.
    All this critic's reviews
  12. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Mike Clark
    38
    Burdened with so many poky scenes that it approaches the level of the distributor's "Drowning Mona" and "Whipped," both candidates for the year's worst.
    All this critic's reviews
  13. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Jay Carr
    38
    The tame, confused script eventually sinks the film, although Field shows skill directing actors.
    All this critic's reviews
  14. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    33
    Not one female character escapes mockery or patronizing.
  15. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Ted Shen
    30
    Sally Field's direction is pedestrian, though she does manage to get winning performances out of Driver and Eisenberg.
  16. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    25
    It's a movie with so many inconsistencies, improbabilities, unanswered questions and unfinished characters that we have to suspend not only disbelief but also intelligence.
  17. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Marc Caro
    25
    Spends its first three-quarters confronting us with one of the most dislikable characters in recent memory.
    All this publication's reviews
  18. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Sara Wildberger
    25
    The trouble starts with the script, and it doesn't end there.
    All this critic's reviews
  19. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    25
    About the only plausible element in the entire movie is bratty Vanessa's loathing of "Aunt" Mona, whom she sees as a vacuous over-reacher.
  20. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Peter Stack
    25
    (Driver) is stuck in a mess of a movie that suffers from awkward writing, a plot with major disconnects in plausibility, an annoyingly screechy kid character and cheesy production values.
  21. Mr. Showbiz
    Reviewed by: Cody Clark
    22
    Beautiful it ain't, but it is kind of cute.
    All this critic's reviews
  22. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marrit Ingman
    20
    A tone-deaf dramedy whose need to please is a pain in the neck.
  23. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    20
    Made with the slick, shorthand complacency of a TV movie, Beautiful is so overstuffed with contrivance, you can hardly breathe.
  24. Variety
    Reviewed by: Emanuel Levy
    20
    There's no particular reason to see this disappointingly trivial picture on the bigscreen.
  25. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    10
    Teeters from a noisy sitcom (only one step removed from "The Beverly Hillbillies") to brickbat satire until it collapses in a pool of redemptive mush.
  26. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Stephen Hunter
    10
    It manages to find an almost pitch-perfect accumulation of ill-matched tones, sheer grotesquerie, near-heroic absurdity and self-canceling folly.
  27. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    10
    Insufferably cloying experience.
  28. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Jessica Winter
    0
    Surpassing Dan Aykroyd's "Nothing but Trouble" as the most astoundingly atrocious walrus-flop of a directorial debut by a languishing actor ever contrived, Sally Field's Beautiful.
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