Director: Michael Patrick Jann
A female-led comedy before Bridesmaids made it cool again, Drop Dead Gorgeous sends-up the fuss around, and the people who participate in, beauty pageants. The humour is broad, and takes obvious swipes at hypocritical Christians, overly-sexed girls, US gun laws, and Mid-West America. I did find it funny, particularly the first half; the ending unfortunately felt haphazard.
The real joy here is the cast of young women, which includes Amy Adams, Brittany Murphy, Kirsten Dunst, and Denise Richards. They more than hold their own alongside Kirstie Alley, Allison Janney, and Ellen Barkin. The mockumentary format alludes to This is Spinal Tap Christopher Guest films, though this is not as good as Spinal Tap; it is not as straight-faced in its delivery.
This reminded me of Pitch Perfect in its approach; it shows that women can do broad comedy just well as men.
This is the first movie that I saw Amy Adams in and I laughed quite a bit at her character. "You can't compete naked. I already checked." And Ellen Barkin as Dunst's mom is the white-trashiest of white trash mothers.
ReplyDeleteYou could tell how good Amy Adams would be as an actor; she slipped several great lines through with subtlety. The cast as whole was definitely great.
Delete