Drop Dead Gorgeous
From Free net encyclopedia
TDS (Talk | contribs)
Revert to revision 48393213 using [[:en:Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation_popups|popups]]
Next diff →
Current revision
Template:Infobox Film Drop Dead Gorgeous was a film originally released in 1999. It stars Denise Richards and Kirsten Dunst as contestants in a beauty pageant called the Sarah Rose Cosmetics Mount Rose American Teen Princess Pageant, held in the small town of Mount Rose, Minnesota. The film is a fictitious documentary covering the pageant. The film is based on the novel Civic Beauties by author C.D. Payne.
(Drop Dead, Gorgeous - with the comma - is a hardcore band from Colorado.)
Plot
Many Mount Rose girls compete in the pageant for something to do. Other contestants, like Amber Atkins (Kirsten Dunst) want to win the scholarship money so they can leave Mount Rose - in Amber's case, so she can become more like her idol, Diane Sawyer. Rebecca Leeman (Denise Richards) is the daughter of the richest man in town, and her mother Gladys Leeman (Kirstie Alley) - the head of the pageant organising committee - is a former winner herself. Various business connections between the Leeman Furniture Store and the judges of the pageant (one is an employee) prompt many whispers around town that the contest will be fixed.
Many odd things start happening to people in the run up to the pageant; one of the contestents, Tammy Curry is blown up while riding a tractor while Amber's love interest, Brett Clemmens, is shot dead in a "hunting accident". Fearing for her life, Amber decides to pull out of the pageant when her mother Annette (Ellen Barkin), is injured during an explosion at their trailer. After a pep-talk with family friend Loretta (Allison Janney), and a heart-to-heart with her mother, Amber reconsiders. At the dress rehearsal a fellow contestant Jenelle Betz (originally contestant number 8), swaps positions with Amber (originally contestant number 1). When Jenelle walks on stage at the beginning of rehearsal to perform her talent piece, a spotlight falls and hits her in the head, knocking her unconscious.
At the pageant (despite her tap costume going missing) Amber performs her tap-dance number to a standing ovation, but still comes second to Rebecca Leeman. At the victory parade the next day, Rebecca Leeman rides in an elaborate swan float, designed by her mother and constructed by her father's workers. Unfortunately, after Gladys Leeman lights the fireworks at the base of the swan, the entire float catches fire, consuming Rebecca in the flames. In her grief and standing by the burnt-out float, Gladys admits to killing Tammy Curry and, it is assumed, causing the other deaths and injuries in the run-up to the pageant.
After Rebecca's funeral Amber is crowned Mount Rose's American Teen Princess, and goes on to the state competition. At the State Competition Amber wins the Minnesota American Teen Princess title by default after all the other contestants fall ill with seafood-related food poisoning. Amber hadn't eaten any because her mother always said "Don't ever eat nothin' that can carry its house around with it. Who knows the last time it's been cleaned." As winner, Amber gets an all-expenses-paid trip to Alabama, where the national American Teen Princess Pageant is held. On arrival Amber and the other contestants find that the company has been shut down by the IRS, and the distraught girls wreck the forecourt of the shuttered Sarah Rose Cosmetics building, hurling suitcases.
By the end of the film Amber Atkins manages to become a reporter, getting her start by taking over from a local television reporter who was shot during a siege conducted by the newly-released from prison Gladys Leeman, perched atop the local supermarket. The film closes with Amber finishing a nightly news presentation on Minnesota television station.