L'éducatrice et le tyran

After looking at some of the scores people gave this movie I honestly didn't think it would amount to much. However, after actually watching it I found it to be surprisingly good. Fran Drescher plays "Joy Miller" who is a beautician in New York City. Timothy Dalton is "Boris Pochenko", a brutal tyrant of a small Eastern European country (Slovetzia) who has mistakenly hired Joy to teach his four children. His Prime Minister, "Leonid Kleist" (played by Patrick Malahide), insures that Boris rules with an iron fist. Joy arrives and becomes instrumental in introducing much needed change. More importantly though, she changes Boris for the better as well. Now, while this plot is extremely predictable, the comedy is anything but that as there are many surprises written into the script that are simply hilarious and I think the writer (Todd Graff) deserves a lot of credit for this. Likewise, even though Fran Drescher was nominated for a "Razzie Award" for her performance, I can honestly say that it was totally undeserved. I found her performance to be both witty and refreshing. I also liked the way she and Timothy Dalton worked so well together. The "massage scene" in particular was especially amusing. In closing, I thought this was a thoroughly enjoyable movie and well worth the time spent.

Yes, it *is* just "The King and I" meets "The Sound of Music" meets "The Nanny", but what's wrong with that? Those formulas (formulae?) were all successful and so it this one if you sit back and enjoy it for what it is - just a fluffy romantic comedy.

(To some of the other reviewers:) Don't take it so seriously! It's just a fairytale! Fran and Timothy play their parts well and look like they're having a ball.

While I won't say that this is an excellent movie, I still like it for its irreverent sense of humor. The acting's pretty average, there seem to be so many plots going on at the same time, but it still makes for an entertaining and interesting watch, if only to see the Nanny in her first major big-screen role. She brings the trademark we know so well to the movie - her nasal voice and pre-occupation with the trivial stuff, but she also brings a kind of sensitivity we've never seen before in the Nanny series.

I quite like some of the scenes - how she teaches the kids what she knows (airline miles), the massage scene, the home-coming, and a lot of others that just seem to be made just for her.

Hey, like many people, I happen to like "The Nanny". I also like Fran Dresscher in "The Nanny". (I don't think I need to explain this any further. A lot of people like this show.) Once in a while I like to watch light, fun, mindless movies. I suppose this all pretty well explains why I enjoyed "The Beautician and the Beast".

Fran plays almost the same familiar role, except instead of Mr Sheffield we have President-for-Life Pochenko of Slovetzia (Tim Dalton). He's an old school dictator and a disciplinarian as a father; however, she eventually captures his heart and gets him to change his ways. His oppressed children love her, of course. Think of Maria and Capt von Trapp. None of it is realistic, but that's part of the movie's charm. It has the same kind of humour as the television show, plus a good deal of gentle ribbing of Slavic countries and dictatorships. I watched the film on TV in Croatia, so I don't think they mind.

I see this movie is rated rather poorly here on IMDb.com. It also didn't do well at the box office. Don't let this influence your decision to watch it. If you like "The Nanny", you'll enjoy this movie too.

I have to admit that, for a while anyway, I had a serious crush on Fran Drescher. Those outfits (in Joe's chauvinistic voice): "OH, YEAH!!!" That big '80's hair. And that voice (except when she got whiny)??? Uh-huh-huh! Uh-huh-huh!

"The Nanny" was a good show, though not great. It was raunchy and funny, though, to me (and maybe this is me being more old-fashioned than I'll admit), raunchy sex jokes do not go together with family entertainment. Thus, I was always convinced that it was in a bad time slot. NBC doesn't show "Law & Order" at 8:00 (or 7:00 if you're in Mississippi like me).

Nitpickiness aside, when I heard that she was doing a movie titled "The Beautician and the Beast," I was quite skeptical. I didn't think that it would be any good. But I sucked up any doubts I had and saw it anyway.

I have to admit that, while it's not the best, it's not the worst, either. I actually liked this movie. Granted, the movie is VERY dated (for the most part, Communism is dead), quite predictable (can you say "The Nanny?") and can get downright stupid (what's with the chicken?).

But it can also be funny, like when Joy, Fran's character, gets the workers to strike, in the tradition of Norma Rae, thus angering Boris Pochenko, played adequately by Timothy Dalton. And there were a lot of raunchy references to her relatives, i.e. one of her aunts having to have facial hair removed. And, without giving anything away, I thought the begining was really cute as well.

Not to mention that I was really impressed with a scene near the end of the film where she stands up to Boris. To me, it sounded as if she was really acting, speaking past her quirky voice and speaking the lines with gusto. That may explain how she got a part in a Woody Allen movie, even if it's a bit part.

This film isn't for everybody, especially if you're put off by Fran's voice. And, though there are no sex scenes, there are benign sexual references, not to mention mild language. Others might say "bring the whole family," but I wouldn't. While *I* think she's funny (like I said before), I believe her humor is too raunchy for family entertainment. And some of her humor deals with generalizations, which may explain why you don't see her being compared to Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez or Rene Russo, strong women who aren't afraid to be "one of the boys."