Paul Creeden I was excited to find this film on cable, since it whipped through my local art house when it was in theaters so fast I had no chance to get to see it. My excitement was justified. I was moved by the film's edge and its talent. It was truly refreshing to see the combination of hand held camera technique and world class acting, with the likes of Linda Basset, Nicholas Farrell and Charlotte Coleman. As an American, who was shielded, as most of us were, from what was really happening in Europe during the Bosnian war of the mid nineties, I felt like a child who was finally getting the real story about a family secret. The presentation of realistic characters in a vibrant and real collage of parallel and interlaced lives, brought the big issues of ethnic hatred, racism, class prejudice and sexism into painful and sometimes humorous focus. I was very happy with the film's conclusion. It brought all those big issues to the table in a brilliant metaphor for the human condition, as it really exists under all the crap. A wonderful movie.

evilmatt-3 To me, this is one of the greatest tragedies of 1999. A nice cast and intriguing story have the potential to elevate this to a great piece of work, yet it fails on a couple of fundamental levels. First, _Beautiful People_ is overburdened with cliches: the immigrant who wants to know "the meaning of life," the mortal enemies who have the same shoe size, etc. I found these excessive to the point that they triggered my gag reflex. Second, and more damaging to the film, it is edited extremely poorly. There are simply too many characters and storylines for this director to handle well. By the time a particular storyline comes around again, the audience has completely forgotten it. (Incidentally, this multiple character and storyline trick can be pulled off with great success- Paul Thomas Anderson did a superb job in _Magnolia_). The film does have its high points, in particular the spectacular performance by Charlotte Coleman. Not bad, but that's about all one can say.

artdeco-2 This very forced attempt to fuse Robert Altman and Quentin Tarantino (who is wildly overrated himself) is neither informative nor entertaining. The character development is arbitrary and unbelievable -- especially in the final scene of the thugs and the little boy, as other reviewers have noted. Also, a couple of humorous moments aside, the film is not as funny (black humor or otherwise) as the director seems to think it is.

decibel-5 Beautiful People deals with some grim & difficult topics – war in Bosnia, drugs, divorce, illegal immigration & more (without giving away any secrets) & uses the currently rather popular device of intertwining story lines to do so, but carries it off with humour & elegance. Such a combination of themes could have been sordid & depressing or worse trite, but in contrast Beautiful People is joyous & exhilarating – a real delight & well worthy of your time.