Review of America The Beautiful (2008) by Kenneth L — 23 Jul 2008

For all its good intentions, Darryl Roberts' film sheds little new light to the culture of beauty, youth and adulation that hasn't already been discussed with an equally un-self reflexive camera in the talk-show circuit.

The film seems to revel in playing proxy to the viewer in its victimhood, but never once turns the camera away from the media to explore the tougher and more complex issue of choice and culpability of the consumer.

The film begins to delve a little into it with several intriguing and fascinating interviews with Eve Ensler, but ultimately ironically abandons that in favor of the almost fetishistic 'concern' for 12-year-old Gerren Taylor's maturity into adulthood in the modelling world.

As documentary, America the Beautiful offers neither hope nor answers to a discourse that is already well established in a 'material world'.