At its heart it’s a film that is trying to critique the stigma of single motherhood and understand exactly what draws women to pageant life.

| Feb 13, 2024

Beautiful is just bad, sadly. Where's the plot?

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 30, 2010

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

| Apr 12, 2010

An uneasy mix of broad satire, soap opera outlandishness, and movie-of-the-week sappiness.

| Original Score: 0.5/4 | Jan 14, 2010

It's treacly, plastic and shamelessly obvious, and yet, on a low-rent level, it somehow works.

| Dec 11, 2006

Flat, witless, and sappy (a very bad combo), Sally Field's embarrassing feature directorial debut aims to say something "relevant" about American society's obsession with physical looks at the expense of "inner beauty" and moral integrity.

Full Review | Original Score: D- | Sep 12, 2006

...one of that growing genre of mainstream Hollywood shots at the main chance -- an unfunny comedy.

Full Review | Original Score: D- | Jan 2, 2005

Pior do que a direo de Sally Field, s mesmo o carter desprezvel da personagem principal: uma mulher egosta, ftil e irritante. Ao longo do filme, eu no queria apenas que ela perdesse o concurso; queria que ela sofresse.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | May 24, 2003

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | May 14, 2003

| Original Score: 1/5 | Mar 10, 2003

When a person is suffering deeply, Field cues you in to what they're thinking by having voices from the past echoing all around them, a technique that's more often used in cautionary drivers' ed documentaries...

| Jun 10, 2002

| Original Score: 1/4 | Mar 19, 2002

The tame, confused script eventually sinks the film.

Full Review | Jan 1, 2000

What could have been light and sweet is bogged down by layer upon layer of schmaltz and sentiment, not to mention a rather ugly (on the inside) main character.

| Jan 1, 2000

A tedious ordeal, riddled with unlikable characters, recycled gags, and inane plot developments.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Jan 1, 2000

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 1, 2000

Focuses on one woman's heartfelt and funny journey in search of what beauty really means.

Full Review | Jan 1, 2000

It's difficult to say whether the film had a weak, choppy script, or if Fields insisted on cramming too much into the final product.

Full Review | Jan 1, 2000

Falls short of its promise by failing to get below the surface of any of the issues it introduces.

| Jan 1, 2000

This movie wants to have it both ways: to score points against beauty pageants and the cult of feminine beauty in our culture, but also to root for Mona. It doesn't work.

Full Review | Jan 1, 2000