Not in the “She’s all That”, beautiful girl-wearing-glasses style. That really boils me. can anyone suggest any movies where a really, truly plain looking girl is transformed into a beauty? Best I can suggest is Carrie.
The Princess Diaries actually manages to make the girl go from frumpy, not-a-second-glance, into a very attractive girl.
Please don’t tell my friends I’ve seen it. Or that I rented it from Netflix. Or that I rented the second one too (which was not as good, mainly because of that stupid birthday party scene).
Didn’t Jawbreaker do that?
But that was Judy Greer, who was hot to begin with, just dressed sort of frumpy and acted mousy before her “makeover.”
“Love Potion No. 9” was pretty effective as I recall with Sandra Bullock.
I don’t have any have any examples relating to the OP, I just wanted to request, if possible, a before and after photo of any examples given.
Although glasses did figure into it, I think that My Big Fat Greek Wedding had a real transformation of the heroine (mostly in the very beginning of the movie).
Drew Barrymore did at least a halfway decent job of trying to look unattractive in Never Been Kissed (I think that was it. She gets left at the door by her prom date or something.)
The classic of the genre is Now, Voyager. Bette Davis goes from a plain neurotic wallflower to a vital attractive woman. Bette Davis was never a classic beauty but the transformation is quite good.
Davis had another transformative role in Pocketful of Miracles, in which she goes from a blowsy drunken apple seller to looking like a Lady For A Day (which is the name of the original version of the story, with May Robson in the part). If one wanted to contort the definition beyond all reason, one could include Davis’s final film, Wicked Stepmother, in which her character magically transforms into Barbara Carrera.
My all-time “most impressive” in this area is Talia Shire’s performance as Adrian in the first Rocky movie.
She starts off as a plain, shy and socially inept girl. By the movie’s end she is attractive, well dressed and confident. This aspect of Rocky never gets much mention, but I think it’s one of the movie’s main accomplishments.
According to the MAD Magazine parody of Love Story, the sicker Ali McGraw’s character got, the more attractive she became.
I think Toni Collete in Muriel’s Wedding certainly qualifies.
flander , do your own Googling.
One of the major reasons I didn’t like that movie is that the “after” in the before and after of that girl was just hideous. I couldn’t believe anyone would take that character seriously as a cool, attractive girl.
There’s also Maggie Gyllenhaal in Secretary. She goes from a cardie-hugging, shy introvert to a short-skirted, high heeled sex bomb – and all through the powers of S&M!
I’ve always thought Jamie Lee Curtis’s brief transformation scene in True Lies was very well done.
The 1995 movie Sabrina comes to mind. Actress Julia Ormond at the start of the movie looks plain, wearing dresses and having really long hair, in a sweet but dull manner. I was a bit worried when I saw that, because I still feel pretty in dresses and long hair. Maybe I look like the before Julia pic without knowing. Our ideas of pretty sometimes can overshadow what really suits us best.
Damn, Otto beat me to it. POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES is the most incredible character change imaginable, Davis is amazing. The whole movie, of course, is one of the most soppy-sweet things you can imagine. I love it.
The Girl Most Likely To…
Stockard Channing plays an overweight, frumpy woman who has a disfiguring car accident, undergoes cosmetic surgery, and comes out of it a babe. She then sets out to get revenge on all the guys who mistreated her before.
And it just came out on DVD about a month ago.
It might depend on what you think of her looks to begin with, but I thought Brittany Muprhy’s transformation/makeover in Clueless was pretty dramatic.
My god, Yes! Even her scars were sexy!