Mona Hibbard is a girl with a dream. She wants to win the Miss American
Miss Pageant. In order to achieve her goal, she runs her own home
business, pays for her own braces, and enrolls in beauty pageant
lessons. She has to because her mother, an alcoholic with a perpetual
headache, provides no support; her stepfather is even worse. Mona's home
life is miserable, and accordingly she develops into a cold and
uncaring young woman. Along the way, however, she meets up with Ruby, a
compassionate and shy girl with natural seamstressing abilities
inherited from her grandmother. With her help, Mona wins a prize for
most unique costume in a pageant. It is the beginning of a beautiful
friendship.
Ten years later, these girls have grown up, and
pageant are still Mona's life. She has not yet met with great success,
however, and she routinely sabotages her fellow contestants' acts. After
being disqualified from yet another contest because of her foul play, a
distressed Mona (Minnie Driver) confesses that she is pregnant. Being a
mother will end her dream of winning the pageant forever. Always
looking out for Mona's best interests, Ruby (Joey Lauren Adams) agrees
to pretend that the child is her own. Seven years later, Mona has just
been crowned Miss Illinois, and her daughter Vanessa (Hallie Kate
Eisenburg) believes that Ruby is her mother. Additionally, she despises
the self-centered Mona, who is still Ruby's roommate.
Now that
Mona's lifelong dream is actually coming to fruition, she has to invent
some substance to her life. When the pageant directors send her a
camera with which to photograph her home life, Mona forces Hallie to
take pictures of her doing heroic things. These include rushing a
pregnant woman to the hospital via shopping cart and brushing the hair
of an elderly woman. Unfortunately, her quest for photos causes enough
of a disruption that the elderly woman, who is under the care of Ruby in
the nursing home, has a chance to OD on sleeping pills. Ruby is accused
of murder, and Vanessa is stuck with Mona until Ruby is proven
innocent.
As the two get to know one another better, Mona
makes another attempt to convince her mother to attend the pageant. Her
mother refuses, and we begin to understand more fully how Mona wound up
being such a miserable person. Vanessa is now responsible for cheering
her up, and Mona decides to bring her along to the pageant. Of course,
she must remain out of sight, which does not happen. The little girl's
presence arouses many questions, and Mona must ultimately decide which
is more important: winning the pageant or being the mother she never had
to a daughter she never cared about.
All's well that ends
well in this entertaining film, but the dramatic conclusion is a bit
unbelieveable. So, too, is Mona's sudden change of heart after seven
years of indifference to her daughter. By far the most likable character
in this film is Ruby; even Vanessa, who is cute and exhibits moments of
compassion, seems to have inherited her mother's attitude much of the
time. Still, there are a lot of funny moments in this movie, and while I
would choose Miss Congeniality over Beautiful given a
choice between the two, I'd still recommend the latter; I'd just put a
little less conviction behind my recommendation. Rent it and see what
you think. At the very least, you will be entertained.
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