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Beautiful
Destination Films


6.0

based on 28 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 7 votes
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MPAA RATING: PG-13 for language and thematic elements

Starring Minnie Driver, Joey Lauren Adams, Hallie Kate Eisenberg, Kathleen Turner, Leslie Stefanson, Bridgette Wilson, Kathleen Robertson, and Michael McKean

On her way to becoming Miss America, a poor girl (Driver) faces her life's goal and discovers what is really important.

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Jon Bernstein
DIRECTED BY:	Sally Field
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: February 20, 2001 Video: February 20, 2000 Theatrical: September 29, 2000
RUNNING TIME:	112 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

In the end, dark comedy drives the film, but it's overwhelmed by a desire to be liked, really liked.

TNT RoughCut Andy Klein

Generally engaging.

Philadelphia Inquirer Desmond Ryan

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."

Dallas Observer Andy Klein

Generally engaging.

Time Richard Schickel

You don't quite believe that a smart woman would spend so much time on such a dumb mission.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Unfortunately, whenever Beautiful threatens to work as parody, it veers uncomfortably into pop psychology.

TV Guide Steve Simels

Sally Field has actually made a likeable movie.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

This film's wise and compassionate view is that, for many young women of limited opportunities, winning a beauty contest represents their best hope.

Film.com Robert Horton

Beautiful is a mess, but not without interest.

San Francisco Examiner G. Allen Johnson

SORRY, SALLY. I didn't like it. I really didn't like it.

USA Today Mike Clark

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.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Rarely does a movie go so thoroughly wrong in so many ways.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

The tame, confused script eventually sinks the film, although Field shows skill directing actors.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Not one female character escapes mockery or patronizing.

Chicago Reader Ted Shen

Sally Field's direction is pedestrian, though she does manage to get winning performances out of Driver and Eisenberg.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Stack

(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.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

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.

Miami Herald Sara Wildberger

The trouble starts with the script, and it doesn't end there.

Chicago Tribune Marc Caro

Spends its first three-quarters confronting us with one of the most dislikable characters in recent memory.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

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.

Mr. Showbiz Cody Clark

Beautiful it ain't, but it is kind of cute.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Made with the slick, shorthand complacency of a TV movie, Beautiful is so overstuffed with contrivance, you can hardly breathe.

Variety Emanuel Levy

There's no particular reason to see this disappointingly trivial picture on the bigscreen.

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

A tone-deaf dramedy whose need to please is a pain in the neck.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Insufferably cloying experience.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

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.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

It manages to find an almost pitch-perfect accumulation of ill-matched tones, sheer grotesquerie, near-heroic absurdity and self-canceling folly.

Village Voice Jessica Winter

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.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.0 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Bob H. gave it a1:
Minnie Driver as a Miss America contestant? Be serious...maybe as a dog show contestant.

Glynn H gave it a10:
I thought this was a great movie. I found it to be very touching as well as very funny. It had me in tears from laughter and from the emotion. Minnie Driver won me over with this movie. I rewatch it at least once a month and my love for it never waivers. It is, if you will forgive me, a "Beautiful" movie.

Marcelo C. gave it a10:
I really liked this movie. You need to be a beauty pageant expert to understand the story. There are many women in the world who would actually do those things and more to become beauty queens. I personally love this movie.

The Eve Of Gilbert Mulroneycakes gave it a 3:
Miss Sally Field deserved a better script for her directorial debut. Good cast and all that, but the script is just...someone should have poured acid on the script and made a completely different movie. Or better still, gone and done something else instead. Like punching Jon Bernstein.

Michelle B. gave it a 9:
I love this movie ,all these people who don't like it don't understand it shes a round character and she changed people change over small events whether you believe it or not(im commenting on one person who said that she changed quickly)

Kylie A. gave it a 9:
I thought it had great music, and a funny plot. The rest of you who panned it are middle aged single people with no lives.

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Beautiful Destination Films

Beautiful
Destination Films