The appropriate cartographical co-ordinates are easy to fix: the Coen brothers' Fargo, for its Minnesota setting, accents, and idioms (one of the unsung stars of that film, Kristin Rudrüd, has a cameo as the TV spokesperson for the St. Paul Pork Company, and is permitted to keep her own surname in the part); Michael Ritchie's Smile, for the satirical subject of a small-town teen beauty pageant; the same director's made-for-television The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom, for the homicidal escalation of hostilities; and either Rob Reiner's This Is Spinal Tap or Christopher Guest's Waiting for Guffman, although the latter is closer in setting and subject matter, for the "mockumentary" format. In that company, or against that competition, Drop Dead Gorgeous shows up more plainly as Slink Away Ugly. The pileup of dead bodies as a stairway to dark comedy is not a dead giveaway to a conformist lack of imagination, but it provides a strong clue; and in combination with the copycatting of Fargo, Smile, etc., it helps provide a pattern. And the documentary premise, if it was not altogether going to exclude the camera crew from intimate conversations they could not conceivably be privy to, at least ought to have cautioned the cast against a winking, elbow-throwing style of playing. Ellen Barkin and Allison Janney, two of the more responsible and trustworthy members of the troupe, playing a pair of trailer-park-trash bosom buddies, are underemployed. Kirstie Alley is the opposite. With Kirsten Dunst and Denise Richards; directed by Michael Patrick Jann. (1999) — Duncan Shepherd