This is perhaps the most miserable comedy I've seen in years.
I did not laugh once; my girlfriend chuckled a couple of times.
But when I turned to her and suggested, "You're FORCING
yourself to laugh because this is awful," she shrugged and
said she was trying to make the best of a bad situation.
This film answers the question: "What happens when people
with no sense of humor try to make a comedy?"
There are exactly two almost-funny moments: One, a big fat
retarded guy who goofs around like a retard. Two, Ellen Barkin
calling someone a "retard."
Not bad, but even I admit that retard jokes are very, very
cheap; I also just find it incredibly funny when someone calls
someone else a retard.
The rest of the humor and plot is so obvious I predicted about
ten jokes long before they occurred. If you sat down for ten
minutes and brainstormed the first dozen jokes you could tell
about beauty pagents, you'd come up with everything in this
movie, and perhaps several gags they hadn't thought of.
Here's an example: The good girl, Kirstin Dunst, whom we're
supposed to be rooting for, is portrayed as a sweet but shallow
hick who has a feminist hero she always mentions. That hero?
Dianne Sawyer, because once Ms Sawyer won a beauty pageant (or so
the film posits).
Now, Election had a similar gag involving Connie Chung. I
can't quite explain why it worked in Election but not here;
perhaps simply because in Election it was intended as a throwaway
line, whereas in DDG it's intended as a major laugh line. (And
it's repeated about ten times; if you giggle uncontrollably at
the mention of Dianne Sawyer, you're in for a real treat.)
The reason it worked in Election and not here is simple:
Election had sympathy for its twisted anti-hero Tracy Enid Flick.
Similarly, the God of all spoofs, Spinal Tap, had an
unmistakeable love for heavy metal music (and its sweetly
antisocial heavy metal heroes) beneath the savage parody.
Drop Dead Gorgeous plainly despises Beauty Pageants. I
understand the feeling; I hate them myself. But people who
despise Beauty Pageants ought not to dedicate two years of their
lives to making a movie about Beauty Pageants; the disgust shows
on the screen. And it's not fun.
Either a score of Zero, if that's allowed, or a score of One,
one half-star for each of Denise Richardson's enormous boobs (which
are NOT on display here, not even beneath tight clothing, but you
can just make out their gorgeous heft if you stare hard enough).
An example of obvious Humor in Drop Dead Gorgeous:
The film is about to introduce the judges for the beauty
pageant.
Think fast: What's the most obvious joke you can think of
regarding a male judge?
You have three seconds.
If you said, "He's a pedophile," you win a cookie.
The pedophile jokes are all incredibly obvious-- he
chainsmokes like Nathan Thurm (Martin Short's defensive lawyer on
SNL) and makes defensive statements like, "I'm just looking
at them. To judge them. Why else would I be looking at them? What
are you suggesting?"
This is obvious and unfunny and cliched gag-writing. What
makes it work even less-- if that's possible-- is that the guy is
gawking at Denise Richards.
Not exactly jailbait, there. And even if it WERE jailbait-- no
jury in the world would ever convict you.
