Critic Reviews

• Ted Shen, Chicago Reader

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

• Emanuel Levy, Variety

  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.

• Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

  A movie with so many inconsistencies, improbabilities, unanswered questions and unfinished characters that we have to suspend not only disbelief but also intelligence.

• Jay Carr, Boston Globe

  The tame, confused script eventually sinks the film.

• Mark Caro, Chicago Tribune

  Sally, get it straight: Mona doesn't deserve to be cheered. We don't like her. We really, really don't like her.

• Hap Erstein, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

  Awkward, alternately sour and sappy.

• Nell Minow, Common Sense Media

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

• Michael Dequina, TheMovieReport.com

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

• David Noh, Film Journal International

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

• Philip Martin, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

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

• Pablo Villaca, Cinema em Cena

  Pior do que a direção de Sally Field, só mesmo o caráter desprezível da personagem principal: uma mulher egoísta, fútil e irritante. Ao longo do filme, eu não queria apenas que ela perdesse o concurso; queria que ela sofresse.

• James Sanford, Kalamazoo Gazette

  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...

Read all 12 critic reviews