Drop Dead Gorgeous was released to theatres on July 23, 1999 and was directed by Michael Patrick Jann and written by Lona Williams. It stars Kirsten Dunst, Ellen Barkin, Brittany Murphy, Allison Janney, Denise Richards, Kirstie Alley, and Amy Adams in her film debut.
By: Anne T. Donahue
This week, we’ve been talking a lot about JD Vance (ugh) and Hillbilly Elegy, the book he wrote that was turned into a movie starring Glenn Close and Amy Adams. Personally, I never want to talk about either JD Vance or Hillbilly Elegy again, but I do want to talk about the curse Amy Adams has clearly suffered as a result of her participation in part of the reason we have to talk about JD Vance in the year of our lord, 2024.
The internet has remarked that had Amy Adams won an Oscar for Arrival, she would never have starred in such a cinematic mistake, and I disagree. She should’ve won for Arrival obviously, but her star really began to shine in a 1999 masterpiece we fail to talk about as often as we should (see: every day): Drop Dead Gorgeous. In it, Amy Adams plays Leslie Miller, a contestant in the annual Sarah Rose Cosmetics American Teen Princess Pageant. Leslie is dating a football star, Leslie may or may not be pregnant, and Amy Adams’s comedic timing is on-par with the entirety of the stacked cast.
Because let’s face facts: Drop Dead Gorgeous boasts a cast better than most Marvel movies. We’re talking Kirsten Dunst, Denise Richards, Allison Janney, Ellen Barkin, Brittany Murphy. We’re talking one-liners that my friends and I still quote today as grown-ass adults because “I won, I’m the winner” is an evergreen reflection upon anything remotely going well. There’s choreography, there’s Allison Janney’s midwestern accent, there’s the descriptor “most smartest.” Did I understand it when I saw it at age 14? Absolutely not, but that was my cross to bear. (Enter: Denise Richards’s dance with Jesus.) Do I know, in my soul, I will grow up to become Loretta? You betcha.
But back to Amy Adams. When we think about our dear friend Amy, we think of her as a dramatic jauggernaut. She is excellent in Arrival (duh), Sharp Objects, The Master, and American Hustle (it’s not her fault she had to speak in a strange British accent). She holds her own in The Fighter. She’s how I sold my friends on seeing Doubt on New Year’s Eve in 2008 because I manipulated them into thinking it wasn’t anything like it actually was. (“Guys! Amy Adams! From Enchanted!”) But she’s also funny. She is believable as a vapid purse vendor in The Office. She is delightful in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day which I bought on DVD because I fell briefly in love with Lee Pace. Two words: Talladega Nights. And honestly, you need comedic chops to deliver the sincerity of her character in Julie & Julia while wearing that godforsaken wig.
We know that Amy Adams deserves an Oscar and that her participation in Hillbilly Elegy was clearly a cry for help. (“Help! I have not won an Oscar and now I will punish us all!”) But believe me when I tell you, we can retroactively award it for Drop Dead Gorgeous because Leslie Miller was as far from Amy Adams as we’ve ever gotten. Leslie is an unserious person who loves her varsity-destined boyfriend for reasons you can only understand if you were once in high school and liked someone because they could skateboard. She leans into her sexuality in the same way some of us did while heading to all-ages clubs, convinced we were more adult than the grown men who groped at us. (Attention parents: please don’t let your teens go to all-ages clubs.) (Attention grown men: please don’t go to all-ages clubs.) She is carefree but complex, naïve yet extremely aware. Also, she can pick up and deliver flawless choreography set to a Gloria Estefan jam. What more do any of us even need?
So yes, this is a round-about way of celebrating the 25th anniversary of Drop Dead Gorgeous. But more importantly, it is an open letter to the Academy, begging them to award Amy Adams an Oscar for this role – or any role that wasn’t in Hillbilly Elegy – to ensure she can stop trending on Twitter for her one (1) career misstep. Let’s do our part to ensure the JD Vance legacy is contained to being a person who ran and lost the American vice presidency. And let’s rally around her in Nightbitch.
Need a little more Anne? Read more from Anne T. Donahue right here!
