Drop Dead Gorgeous Details

This highly sophisticated black comedy takes the form of a pseudo-documentary as it follows a small-town beauty pageant from the auditions to the glitz and glamour of the finals. Kirsten Dunst, a sweet girl from a trailer-trash background, is pitted against spoilt little rich girl Denise Richards. Meanwhile, someone in town is knocking off their competition. Ellen Barkin and Kirstie Alley are both excellent as the girls' cat-fighting mothers, and overall this is a very refreshing and ironic take on suburban American life. Director Michael Patrick Jann has succeeded in making an accessible and intelligent independent film in the same vein as Fargo, and the result is so much more interesting than the usual Hollywood fare.

Heavy-handed satire on small town life and the beauty business; the narrative becomes too contrived to provide much satisfaction.