DROP DEAD GORGEOUS

US, 1999, 93 minutes, Colour.
Kirsten Dunst, Kirstie Alley, Ellen Barkin, Denise Richards, Brittany Murphy, Adam West, Amy Adams, Allison Janney, Matt Molloy, Mindy Sterling.
Directed by Michael Patrick Jann.

Drop Dead Gorgeous is a very funny satire. It is a satire of laughing at the United States and its eccentricities more than laughing with them.

The focus is the beauty pageant in the small American towns. This time the state is Minnesota. (Other films on beauty pageants include Sally Field’s Beautiful and the two Miss Congeniality films.)

Kirstie Alley stars as the one-time beauty queen who manipulates the competition so that her daughter, Denise Richards, can win. This includes murdering various contestants. Kirsten Dunst is the heroine, the nice girl who is competitive, practises her routines as she works at an embalming centre. Ellen Barkin has a good role as her mother. Allison Janney also has a very strong role as her mother’s friend. (Allison Janney made this film in 1999 as well as her funny turn as the school counsellor in Ten Things I Hate About You and the reticent wife in American Beauty, prior to beginning her long role in The West Wing.) Adam West has a guest role, Amy Adams (Dune Bug, Enchanted **??) has an early role as does Brittany Murphy (Clue).

The screenplay is often very witty. The situations are farcical – enjoyably exaggerated, culminating in Denise Richards’ bizarre turn as dancing with a crucifix to ‘You’re Too Good To Be True’. To that extent, the film targets Middle America, its religiosity, its Puritanism, its competitiveness, its double standards.

1.An effective satire? American style? Broad? And some subtleties in dialogue?

2.The title, its irony about beauty, irony about the murders? Beauty pageants, their place in the United States, the preparations, the choosing of the talent and rehearsing for it, the role of the judges? Ambitious mothers? Dresses, pageantry? The consequences? The opening advertisement, the cosmetics, Adam West as himself?

3.Minnesota, Mount Rose, the homes, the hall, the stores, the farmers, the oldest Lutheran billboard, the Sisterhood of the Rifles, laughing at America?

4.The docudrama style, the interviews, the girls and their talent, the innuendo in the dialogue, the rehearsals, the former beauty queen and her anorexia, in hospital? Amber and her work embalming? The canteens and the rivalry? Rebecca and Amber? Brett?

5.Gladys Lehman, Kirstie Alley’s style, her story, her submissive husband, the store and the scams, her carefree parking in the wrong zone, supervising rehearsals, her talking to camera, her pride in Rebecca, Rebecca and her talk, shooting? Her nastiness towards Amber?

6.The introduction to the girls, their stories, motivation for going in the competition, their talents? The girl with the sign language and the song and dance, the farmer girl, the injuries, the Japanese parents and their adopted American girl?

7.Amber and her family, tough, Loretta as the friend, crass, trailer living? Amber at work? Her embalming? Annette, the beer? The explosion and the beer welded to her? Amber and her admiration of Diane Sawyer?

8.The deaths, the rifles, the farmer and her crash, Brett and his death, the trailer fire? The knocking out of the girl with the sign language? Her losing her hearing?

9.The judges, the interviews, the morons, the police and their lack of investigation, the undertaker, the old lady, the doctor, the kid guitarists, the nurses? The anorexic queen in hospital and the satire on anorexia and the desire for thinness and beauty? The dance teacher and her demands?

10.Loretta, her character, language, advice, stepping in to help Amber?

11.The interviews of the contestants, the discussion about the trees, Rebecca and her smarmy style, the young girl with the gay brother, the talk about the impersonations – and her exposing her brother to her father? Amber having to spell all the states?

12.The performance, the dresses, the death of the girl signing, the theme of proud to be an American, each girl explaining the monuments in her headdress, the dresses? Wheeling in the girl from the hospital, her lip-synching? The phys-ed dance? Gladys and her seventeen years? The girl doing the animal howling? The wrestling sequence? The girl and her recitation of Soylent Green? Amber, the refusal of permission for her dress? Gladys’s henchwoman? The girl giving up her dress, Rebecca singing ‘Too Good To Be True’ with the crucifix? The satire and bad taste? American fundamentalism and religiosity? Amber’s tap-dancing, the applause? The judges and the fight? The winners and their reactions?

13.The parade, the float, the stranded brother, the explosion, Rebecca’s death? Gladys and her outburst? Her confession – the funeral, her imprisonment? The interview from prison?

14.The pageant, Loretta going to the capital, flirting with the young men, the irony that there was no money, the hotel, the chatter of the two founders of the company, the rehearsals, the dancers – the vomiting and the sickness, the music of Richard Strauss, the television reaction? Gladys and her threats?

15.Sarah Rowe’s company, tax evasion, the collapse?

16.Amber, her quick thinking and doing the report for the television – and her television career and fulfilling her ambitions?