Danielle MacDonald stars as Willowdean Dixon, the daughter of former pageant queen and current pageant runner Rosie Dixon (Jennifer Aniston). Willowdean used to have her aunt Lucy (Hilliary Begley) to help her through pageant season, but Lucy has recently passed away. Upon discovering an incomplete pageant application among her aunt's things and determining that Lucy must have not thought she would be welcome among the pageant's thin, pretty contestants, Willowdean decides to enter this year's Miss Teen Bluebonnet pageant in protest. She is joined by her best friend, Ellen (Odeya Rush), who fits right in among the other contestants; Millie (Maddie Baillio), who, like Willowdean, is overweight, but unlike Willowdean, has dreamed of entering the pageant since she was eight; and Hannah (Bex Taylor-Klaus), whose entry in the talent contest initially consists of simply chanting "Down with patriarchy!" Willowdean somewhat reluctantly befriends Millie and Hannah after she and Ellen have a falling-out ("You're not built for the revolution," Willowdean tells Ellen); she and her mother learn to understand each other better; and she learns that there is more to pageants than meet the eye. Along the way, she finds a flyer for a Dolly Parton night at a bar called the Hideaway, after which the drag queens she meets there become unofficial pageant coaches for her and her new friends.
One thing I appreciated is that this movie is set in a world where most people are fundamentally decent. Yes, there are some teen boys who yell nasty things at Willowdean and Millie (Millie mostly grins and bears it; Willowdean gets suspended from school for kneeing a boy in the groin). Yes, Willowdean and Millie get some "What are you doing here?" looks from some of the pageant organizers and fellow contestants. However, this is not the world of Glee, where those kids were constantly getting slushees thrown in their faces and having the cheerleading coach plot against them, or of Never Been Kissed, where more than one character has dog food thrown at them by the popular kids. Here, the frontrunner in the pageant (Dove Cameron) looks exactly how you would expect her to look, and she even has a crush on the same boy that Willowdean does...but she seems nice enough. In a different/worse teen movie, she would be actively plotting against Willowdean and her friends. Here, more realistically, she and Willowdean are neither best friends nor enemies.
The parents aren't depicted as being evil, either. It's fairly clear that winning the Bluebonnet pageant was the high point of Rosie's life, but given that the Bluebonnet pageant is such a big deal in their town, and that Rosie never left either the town or pageant culture, it makes sense that she would view it that way. Also, though Millie's mother (Kathy Najimy) refuses to sign Millie's permission slip for the pageant and is initially angry when she finds out that Millie forged her signature, it is clear once we meet her that she only did so because she wants to protect her daughter, and she comes around pretty quickly to being supportive. The looks on both her and Rosie's faces when Millie and Willowdean take the stage are very true to how mothers would react in those moments-- initially nervous on their behalf, then proud.
There are some real moments of joy in this movie. Some of them involve Millie, who is so earnest and hopeful; whose smile so rarely leaves her face; who is working so hard and wants to do well so badly-- and is genuinely good at virtually every aspect of the pageant. Others involve Willowdean and Ellen's friendship; they bonded as little girls over their love of Dolly Parton, and one genuinely joyful moment in the film comes when the two of them sing along to "9 to 5" as Willowdean starts to drive out of a parking lot and Ellen jogs alongside the car, holding her hand. Nearly ALL of the joyful moments, in fact, are set to Dolly Parton music, including a closing scene with the girls and their moms back at Dolly Parton night at the Hideaway, onstage with the drag queens singing "Two Doors Down": "Here I am, feeling everything but sorry. Having a party, two doors down."
In short, it is a good-hearted movie about good people having a life-changing experience, with lots of Dolly Parton on the soundtrack; a feel good movie that goes deeper into the characters' relationships than you might expect.
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