The Beautician and the Beast

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Beautician and the Beast
The one-sheet promotional poster for film.
Directed by	Ken Kwapis
Produced by	Todd Graff Hawk Koch Roger Birnbaum Fran Drescher Peter Marc Jacobson
Written by	Todd Graff
Starring	Fran Drescher Timothy Dalton
Music by	Cliff Eidelman
Cinematography	Peter Lyons Collister
Editing by	Jon Poll
Release date(s)	1997
Running time	105 min.
Country	USA
Language	English
IMDb profile

The Beautician and the Beast is a 1997 family comedy film directed by Ken Kwapis and starring Fran Drescher and Timothy Dalton as the title characters. The story follows the misadventures of a New York beautician who is (mistakenly) hired as the school teacher for the children of the president of a small Eastern European country. The story is similar in aspects with The King and I, The Sound of Music and Evita (film).

Contents 1 Plot 2 Slovetzia 3 Slovetzian Language 4 Response 5 Trivia 6 External links 7 See also

[edit] Plot

The story is about a beautician in America (Fran Drescher) who works and lives for hair. One day she is mistaken for a an academic teacher by a mysterious representative of a country she never heard of and becomes the tutor of the children of a dictator of a small post-communist Eastern European country called Slovetzia. The authoritarian president Boris Pochenko (Timothy Dalton) is very moody and generally is thought to be a "beast". As the beautician becomes a friend to the children she also helps to improve the president's almost rogue attitude and an unlikely love story emerges.

[edit] Slovetzia

Slovetzia is a tiny state (possibly qualifying as a European microstate) between Romania, Ukraine and Slovakia; situated roughly in Trans-Carpathia, a real region in the Ukraine. The republic is a post-communist Eastern European dictatorship. The national flag of Slovetzia is a red over (medium) blue bicolor with a black boar's head with white tusks. The ratio of the natioanl flag is approximately 2:3. The presidential flag of Slovetzia seen on the president's car is square.

[edit] Slovetzian Language

Slovetzian, a fictional Slavic language is spoken by the children of the president and other characters in the film. The language is written in Latin letters as seen in the film.

[edit] Response

This movie was generally panned by the critics including one scathing review by Susan Wloszczyna of USA Today. (The irony is not lost as the dictator Boris Pochenko lambasts the negative coverage of his image and his country by the USA Today in the movie!)

"Listening to Fran Drescher's nasal squawk for an entire movie is the price you'll pay to see The Beautician and the Beast. Imagine having your ear canal scoured with Brillo. Only more abrasive."

-- Susan Wloszczyna

[edit] Trivia

• The film prominently features the phrase "talk to the hand" and was said to be involved in popularizing it.
• According to the DVD commentary, the original title for the film was "The King and Oy", a direct reference to the musical The King and I, but it had to be changed because they could not obtain the rights to use it.
• "The Beautician and the Beast" is also the name of a song by Peter Gabriel
• The film was shot in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles and Prague.
• The dictator is seen in the film reading the U.S. newspaper USA Today and the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet, lambasting the negative coverage of his image and his country by the USA Today.

[edit] External links

• The Beautician and the Beast at the Internet Movie Database

[edit] See also

• Fictional European countries
• Fictional countries
• List of fictional countries
• Fictional languages
• List of fictional languages