A team of women hatches a plan to disrupt the 1970 Miss World beauty competition in London.
I won't lie, I wasn't massively excited or interested in seeing this film, although I decided to brave the 'Covid-19' scare to go to the cinema and see this film, what did interest me though is the seemingly relevant storyline and underlying message to the film relating to misogyny and racism in society. The film focuses on the 'Miss World' competition from 1970 - 'Miss World', a competition based on judging Women purely off their appearance and how attractive men find them. It's a different film with a strong message to it, and even though it provides an entertaining storyline, the film doesn't get everything right. Onto the main question though, does this film take home the crown or is it a loser? Here are my thoughts...
I wasn't sure what to expect from the start of this film I wasn't sure if it would start political or if it would establish the story but what's surprising is how it doesn't do either of these, but it still manages to engross us within the culture and theme of the film excellently which helps to give the film a powerful and meaningful feeling to it. The introduction gives a sexualised impression of women, seeing them parading around in competitions and shows in a sexualised way starts of the film by shocking us in the way that the women are spoken to, seeing how Sally reacts to these clips also helps to introduce her in a way which gives us a good first impression, showing her as a strong and unique character. It's a great introduction, because not only does it outline something she's passionate about, but it provides a surprising start to the film, which helps to grab our attention early on.
One of my favourite things about this film is that at first glance, it is a film about sexism and misogyny, however, as the film progresses, it delves into a wide variety of different themes and issues such as racism and ageism, I like how the film explores these, because it adds a good sense of variation to the film, and helps to keep the characters engaging, and enjoyable because of the personal and genuine feeling we get of them. These are well portrayed too, and the wide variety of different character types help to add variation into the film, sure we don't get an in-depth insight into the different groups of characters, but there is enough there to pull the story along and to keep it engaging. These different character groups are separated well, and the implementation of different sections of the film dedicated to giving us different perceptions as to what the characters are doing is really helpful because it helps to give a much more broad perception as to not only what's going on but also as to how the various characters are interacting with each other too, which helps to establish their relationships nicely.
The film has a good plot, and the story communicates the message well, whilst keeping an exciting and enjoyable story. Seeing how Sally's life is affected by the Women's liberation helps to give a better insight into her character, and helps to make the film feel more like an overall story, instead of a political message which I like. It is decent though, and the overall film feels well laid out, which helps to keep the film easy to follow, whilst being exciting. The film delves into the characters on the other side of the film too, and by giving us a really good insight into the performers, not only does it give the film a climax to it, but it builds up nicely to the main event well, and by adding in explosives, it adds an element of excitement and danger to the film, which helps to give the characters a sense of passion, and keeps the film flowing nicely.
I like the attention to detail that this film offers too, it isn't just about the overall message that the film sends, but it's about really making the film seem and feel believable, and by shocking us in doing so. I noticed characters saying things like "oh show us your legs" whereas other characters were saying "don't be so disrespectful', the film isn't about ploughing into misogyny but it gives a nice insight into how women sometimes liked the way they were treated, as it gave them a purpose and made them feel positive and I liked the implementation of this, because again, it helps to prevent the film from being a political message, but instead, it gives a genuine and important insight into the time and ideologies. As well as this, it gives an important insight into the various age differences too, by delving into how each generation see and perceive the sexualisation of women, and it gives an important and useful insight into this.
The film isn't perfect though, that's for sure. One of my main problems is that the film just doesn't feel very immersive of exciting, it only really offers a ripple as to who the various characters are, and for much of it, we don't really get much of an insight into the other characters around Sally, they just appear without much context. This means that they're always starting at a disadvantage because there isn't a strong introduction to them, so we don't have a good idea of the type of character they are, and their purpose, they just appear out of nowhere, and this isn't good at all, because it ruins the overall purpose and meaning behind the film and the emotions of the characters, because they don't have any meaning.
As well as this, the film just felt quite boring, I mean sure the film uses the 'Miss World' competition as its main climax, but it doesn't massively build-up to this, and there really isn't a massive amount that the characters do apart from this and making some propaganda, from the perspective of the liberation, there just isn't much that they do to make them seem exciting, and this left me watching my watch throughout, because there wasn't a really gripping feeling to the film, and not much sense of engagement either. Sure, it has an important message, but there's no point in watching a film if it's not exciting, right?
While this does give the chance to view things from different perspectives and allows for the exploration of more themes, it makes things feel slightly muddled. Perhaps it would've benefited from choosing one perspective to focus the story through to make things a little more streamlined. The film has a strong idea behind it which I love, but the lack of an exciting storyline and strong and interesting characters wasn't very good at all, and ultimately left me feeling bored. It's a real shame because there was a great opportunity to send a real message with this film and to combine the two themes of educating and entertaining, but the film doesn't do much of the latter.
Overall, I would give this film a 6. I wasn't overly impressed, the characters aren't massively engaging or exciting because they lack a real sense of empowerment and strength, and there isn't much for us to grip onto here. Bob Hope was played well by Greg Kinnear and I thought that the important insights that the film gave us into racism were important, and helped to carry the film, arguably more so than the gender element of the film. Would I recommend it? No, I wouldn't, but it doesn't matter anyway because all of the cinemas are shut! ;) Seriously though, it just doesn't feel exciting enough for me, and whilst the message of the film is clear and important, the execution is weak which leaves a lot to be desired, and left me a little disappointed.
Thank you for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did watching the film and writing this review, I hope you have a lovely day! If you would like to check out my Official Facebook page where you can see sneak previous and more film insights then please consider checking out the link below!
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