The local boosters of Mount Rose, Minnesota proudly invite you to watch as their annual celebration of civic pride, wholesome achievement, teenage innocence and spirited camaraderie all go up in hilarious flames over the course of one nasty, back-stabbing beauty contest.

A wickedly colorful, twisted comedy, Drop Dead Gorgeous probes the heart of a small Minnesota town where a fictional teen beauty pageant has unleashed a fury of very unladylike behavior.

Here in the hallowed American heartland-amidst the cow fields, pork sausage factories and Lutheran churches, going after the tiara is not just a fairy-tale dream: it's all-out war.

Everyone involved in the contest-mothers, daughters, boyfriends-knows only one thing counts and it isn't talent, physical fitness, current events or sportsmanship. It's being Number One, "yah, you betcha!" Because in Mount Rose, you win any way you can.

Let's meet a few of the main contestants: enjoying a firm lead is Becky Leeman (Denise Richards), spoiled little rich girl, daughter of former winner Gladys Leeman (Kirstie Ally). Becky's main talent seems to be sanctimoniousness, sucking up to the judges with all the gusto that she-and her mother-can muster.

Close behind Becky Leeman is television anchorwoman-in-waiting Amber Atkins (Kirsten Dunst), the smart, sexy trailer-park beauty who was raised on second-hand smoke, and dreams of getting out of Mount Rose and away from her trailer home where she lives with her loving mother Annette (Ellen Barkin). If Diane Sawyer could make it out of a small town, so can Amber! This little lady shows promise-especially in underdog perseverance, tap-dancing and beautifying stiffs at the local funeral parlor.

Joining Becky and Amber is an equally ambitious cadre of girls doing animal calls, lip-synching and interpretive sign language dances in sequins and spandex.

Drop Dead Gorgeous takes a wild ride through the All-American, win-at-all-costs philosophy while drawing an indelible satire of growing up in the heartland of hypocrisy. Like the contestants in Mount Rose, the film crosses over the line into its own unique brand of outrageous, biting comedy that spares no one.

MOVIE REVIEW

Kirsten Dunst plays an aspiring teen beauty queen in Drop Dead Gorgeous, a movie that thankfully has nothing to do with the abysmal Drop Dead Fred but that does boast a pretty good cast... or at least a cast that is able to spoof a beauty pageant in a small town.
Read our Drop Dead Gorgeous movie review »