Lovely and Amazing -a film review

The film Lovely and Amazing portrays the life of four female members of one particular average American family and their struggles within themselves to find happiness in their lives and their body image (this is the main thesis and plot line of the film). The mother is dealing with the extra fat she has gained as she has aged and has decided to have plastic surgery to become “beautiful” again for her young adopted daughter. Through this process, she thinks the surgeon develops feelings for her even to the point that after she wakes up from the coma (due to complications from the surgery) and finds that he was home with his wife, she yells at him. The oldest daughter, Michelle, is a middle-aged housewife who is going through a little bit of a midlife crisis and she begins to not be satisfied in her marriage (thinking her husband is no longer satisfied with her body) and with staying home. She then proceeds to get a job working for a much younger (17) boy that she develops feeling for and eventually has an affair with. After being caught in the affair by the boy’s mother, Michelle goes to jail and reevaluates her position in life after a phone argument with her husband where he threatens to take away their daughter. The middle daughter, Elizabeth, is an aspiring actress who feels that her career is going nowhere. She suffers from insecurity about her body type and seeks fulfillment from others and the animals she rescues. This caring for animals eventually leads to the completion of her insecurity as she gets attacked by a dog, leaving a scar on her face. This even prevents her from finding fulfillment in others because it prevents her from dating a man who is legitimately interested in her. The youngest daughter, Annie, is the only African American one of them all, as she was adopted by the mother of the other girls. She is struggling throughout the film to find her place in a Caucasian family with her dark skin, chubby body, and crimpy hair. She takes many steps to become more like her sisters, but resorts back to her true self each time. All of these individual stories occur simultaneously as the mother prepares for and undergoes her cosmetic surgery, ending when the daughters get the phone call to come pick her up from the hospital.

The film specifically relates to the class in many ways, so many that it is hard to pick just two ways they correlate. It seems that the film deals a lot with weight (found in the story of the mother and the youngest daughter, Annie). The two women deal with their weight issues in very different ways. The mother decides to undergo dramatic surgery to fix hers; Annie just makes jokes about it and/or refuses to eat. This weight issue touches on the dangers of plastic surgery much like the essay Cosmetic Surgery: Paying for Your Beauty by Debra Gimlin. Many women, much like the mother, go into plastic surgery thinking that it is an easy surgery with little to no negative consequences. But, as shown in the film and in the essay, there are many risks involved ranging anywhere from the surgery not working to bad scarring to death. It also hints as eating disorders at the end when Annie refuses to eat all the food she bought on a potential binge eating episode. This binge eating is also hinted at in the beginning of the film when she eats a large handful of cookies after her mother told her not to. This goes along with the essays in the book Body Outlaws, specifically Shrink Wrap by Jennifer Panning and Sizing Myself Up by Kate Dillon. Both of these essays deal with how easy it is to become prey to eating disorders and how many of them may be overlooked or unrealized by most people, as in the case of Annie in the film

Overall the film was good. It made some very important points about what women feel and go through in their lives. Each of the women represents different body images and women at different stages in life. They each have their own problems and they each deal with their problems in very different ways. It also presented these topics in an interesting, non-monotone-documentary way; instead it had a logical and clear timeline and plot. The film only had one drawback for me, the brief moment of nudity seemed unnecessary. I think the film could have still had that moment without actually showing Michelle’s body to the viewers. The director could have had her standing with her back to the camera and only see from the lower back up and still gotten the same effect. Also, in the first car scene between Michelle and her new 17 year old boss it was hard to tell if they were doing anything but making out. I do not think they should have shown more than they did, but there were other ways to make it more clear, for example in the film Titanic, the car’s windows are all fogged up making it more implied.

The film seemed to come from the perspective that women, no matter who they are, where they are in life, and what body type they have will never be satisfied with themselves. Each of these women is beautiful in their own right and in their own unique ways, and all four of them have good lives. The film seems to say that all of that does not matter and that women will always be looking for something better to come along. This is clearly seen in how all of the women seek to alter themselves for others. The mother does so in getting plastic surgery; Michelle by getting a job and having an affair with her very young boss; Elizabeth by feeling bad for being called un-sexy by one person despite everyone else in her life telling her otherwise and making her lover in the middle of the film evaluate her naked body; and Annie trying to be more skinny and look like her Caucasian family (straight hair, pale skin, and all). The film also seems to say that there is no set definition of beauty, especially seen in the way Elizabeth is insecure with her body from one comment and Michelle by the way her young boss is infatuated with her.

Overall, I would rate this movie a B. If you are looking for a film that takes all of what the media tells women and depicts how different women will react differently from it, this would be the movie for you. Otherwise, you may think that the four women are just bored middle-class women and toss the film away. Your choice, but I would hope that you would choose the first option.