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EXCLUSIVE to MIFF...the full review of "America the Beautiful"

Nothing Pretty About Societal Obsessions in ‘America the Beautiful’
by Patrick McDonald

Writer/Director Darryl Roberts had a thought one day about one of the most pervasive and persuasive components in American life – the fixation on beauty. It had to do with a killing he had read about involving a crime of passion, where the perpetrator confessed that he murdered his attractive ex-girlfriend because he didn’t want anyone else to have her.

Roberts’ curiosity was piqued. Why would a person be so hung up on beauty as to commit murder? This impression developed into his new documentary, “America the Beautiful.”

Roberts explores the broad topic of beauty in this country from several unique angles. Through advertising images, the cosmetics industry and even the capitalization of a painfully young fashion model, Roberts moves through the landscape like a modern day Diogenes, shattering myths by presenting the truth.

The film opens with a focus on a fundamental reality, that outward beauty has been given so such weight in our current culture, that only 2 of 100 women that Roberts surveyed would even admit to being attractive. Manipulative images, over 2000 a day for the average person, convey success in looks only through perfection, even though each of the images are airbrushed of imperfections.

Interviews with beauty industry leaders, especially fashion magazine editors, reveal the monetary rewards of keeping self-esteem low, but Roberts seeks to look further under the rock. Along the way he finds out about a key ingredient in cosmetics that the European Union has banned but America still uses, plastic surgery licensing that is truly suspect and assorted hucksters that are associated with keeping America fearful of their own skin.

Roberts also employs three men, using them as a harsh “greek chorus” in their assessment of women and ideals of beauty. In that way he uncovers how the male gender has the same vulnerabilities when faced with the onslaught of image, and how it generates a superficiality when making relationship decisions and connections.

The centerpiece of the film, a muse that follows it the whole way, is the story of Gerron Roberts. Roberts made a splash in Los Angeles in 2003 when she suddenly became one of the town’s hottest models. She was 12 years old.

Her journey, from pre-pubescent childhood – using her Barbie dolls on a practice runway – to being cast aside in Europe only three years later, reveals the cruel dissolution of her self esteem in evaluation from agencies, colleagues and even celebrities. It is a compact version of what all adolescent girls endure, and Gerron’s second guessing about her body image becomes like accident wreckage you can’t turn away from.

Darryl Roberts makes a simple plea in this film. Just reject the perfected and manipulated images of advertising and begin to assess beauty for what it is – the inner truth within each of us.

Rating ***1/2 stars

Patrick McDonald is a Chicago based film critic and writer. Read his reviews and articles at...

http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/
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