To me, this is one of the greatest tragedies of 1999. A nice cast and intriguing story have the potential to elevate this to a great piece of work, yet it fails on a couple of fundamental levels. First, _Beautiful People_ is overburdened with cliches: the immigrant who wants to know "the meaning of life," the mortal enemies who have the same shoe size, etc. I found these excessive to the point that they triggered my gag reflex. Second, and more damaging to the film, it is edited extremely poorly. There are simply too many characters and storylines for this director to handle well. By the time a particular storyline comes around again, the audience has completely forgotten it. (Incidentally, this multiple character and storyline trick can be pulled off with great success- Paul Thomas Anderson did a superb job in _Magnolia_). The film does have its high points, in particular the spectacular performance by Charlotte Coleman. Not bad, but that's about all one can say.
Review of Beautiful People
