Undercover FBI agent Gracie Hart shows no signs of having any femininity in her demeanor or appearance. Generally a bright and capable agent, she is in trouble at work when she makes an error in judgment in a case which results in a near disaster. As such, one of her by-the-books colleagues, Eric Matthews, who has never shown any inclination of thinking outside the box, is assigned to lead the high profile case of a terrorist coined The Citizen instead of her, while she is facing possible disciplinary action.
Gracie pieces together the evidence to determine that The Citizen’s next target will be the Miss United States beauty pageant. The pageant represents everything that Gracie abhors. Despite Gracie’s mannish demeanor, Eric, with no other undercover female agent remotely fitting the demographic, assigns her to go undercover as a pageant contestant to see if she can flush out The Citizen, who is perhaps one of the other contestants.
Although the pageant administration, led by former winner Cathy Morningside and long time host Stan Fields, provide the FBI with access to the pageant, Cathy in particular is less than thrilled to have a non-credible Gracie posing as a contestant which she feels will ruin the pageant. The FBI enlist the assistance of former pageant contestant coach Victor Melling, who is facing his own disgrace associated with the pageant, to do the near impossible task of transforming Gracie, not only into a woman, but a credible beauty pageant contestant.
As Gracie proceeds in the transformation, she gets to know the other contestants, not only as potential criminals, but also as real people. She also discovers that another sinister element is present at the pageant. She will do whatever it takes to quash that element and protect her new friends, namely the other innocent contestants. But now displaying some femininity, Gracie begins to have more womanly feelings herself and in turn attracts the attention of men, one in particular about who she is happy.
Miss Congeniality is a 2000 American comedy film directed by Donald Petrie, written by Marc Lawrence, Katie Ford, and Caryn Lucas, and starring Sandra Bullock with Michael Caine, Benjamin Bratt, William Shatner, Ernie Hudson, and Candice Bergen. Miss Congeniality was released by Warner Bros. Pictures on December 22, 2000 and was a box office hit grossing $212 million worldwide. A sequel, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, was released in March 24, 2005 with Bullock, Shatner and Hudson reprising their roles.
The story is set in New York City and San Antonio. Scenes showing the exterior of the St. Regis Hotel, and a few street scenes, were shot on location in New York, and the Alamo and River Walk scenes were shot on location in San Antonio. However, most of the movie was actually shot in Austin, Texas: scenes depicting the interior of the St. Regis were shot in Austin’s Driskill Hotel; the pageant scenes were shot at the Bass Concert Hall at the University of Texas at Austin; and scenes depicting the pageant contestants in their hotel rooms were shot in the Omni Austin at South Park.[3]
Box office and reception
The film was the fifth highest-grossing film in North America on its opening weekend, making $13,853,686 USD; it had a 5% increase in earnings the following week—enough to make the film reach #3; and overall it was a box office hit, grossing more than $106 million in the United States, and more than $212.7 million worldwide.
It was nominated for several awards, including two Golden Globes: Sandra Bullock earned a nod for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy / Musical, and Bosson’s “One in a Million” was nominated for Best Original Song in a Motion Picture. The film has a 42% rating at Rotten Tomatoes and a metascore of 43 at Metacritic, mixed to poor reviews. The New York Times described it as “a standard-issue fish-out-of-water comedy” which “seems happily, deliberately second-rate, as if its ideal audience consisted of weary airline passengers”.
Miss Congeniality Movie Poster (2000)
Directed by: Donald Petrie
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Michael Caine, Benjamin Bratt, Candice Bergen, William Shatner, Melissa De Sousa, Deirdre Quinn, Steve Monroe, Wendy Raquel Robinson
Screenplay by: Marc Lawrence, Katie Ford, Caryn Lucas
Production Design by: Peter S. Larkin
Cinematography by: László Kovács
Film Editing by: Billy Weber
Costume Design by: Susie DeSanto
Set Decoration by: Barbara Haberecht, Randy Huke
Art Direction by: Ray Kluga
Music by: Edward Shearmur
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual references and a scene of violence.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: December 22, 2000
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