Film: Miss Congeniality(Cert PG) Director: Donald PetrieRunning Time: 109 minutes. Rating: ***

At first it seems that Sandra Bullock has made an attempt to combat the

typical ‘girly-girl’ stereotype that is frequently performed by the A-list beauties

in the film industry. She begins her role as the never-been-loved, tomboy FBI

agent Gracie Hart who is ungraceful in every way and not what you would

class as pretty. Hart is also against all things that typically, make women,

women – make-up, hairstyling, interest in fashion etc. This does not last long

however as the Miss USA Beauty Pageant is under a threatened bomb attack,

Hart is assigned an undercover position as ‘Miss New Jersey’. As the film

progresses and Hart enjoys her new, beautiful look, the audience soon sees

that she quickly reverts into the roles she is so used to playing. Bullock

becomes gorgeous, graceful and begins to love taking care of her

appearance.

Miss Congeniality is an undesirably predictable film, although if looking for a

quick laugh it is definitely worth a watch. The humorous banter between Harts

pageant consultant, Victor Melling (played by Michael Caine), brought in to aid

her transformation into beauty queen, and herself make the film an enjoyable

experience. The relationship between Hart and her love interest, Eric

Matthews (played by Benjamin Bratt), is also rather comical. Although it must

be noted that Bratt does not pull off the role as well as he could. His

performance appears to be quite stiff which doesn’t fit in with the nature of his

character.

This film, although predictable in every sense of the word, is worth a watch if

you like a classic chick flick. Bullock does perform well as producer and lead

role but does not do well to combat the common misconceptions that are held

of women – that they should look beautiful all the time and be interested in the

typical girly things. Therefore for the feminists of the world, I would not

recommend it.

ENDS