Day 10 -- Southern Belles

Released: March, 2005

Starring: Anna Faris, Laura Breckenridge, Justin Chambers

Writer/Director: Brennan Shroff and Paul S. Myers

Description: Bell and Belle want to break out of their trailer park lives and get up and out to the "Big City" of Atlanta. Just when they think they are on their way to getting a nest egg Bell falls for a handsome police officer named Rhett Butler.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

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"Southern Belles" is one of those movies that I think got lost in translation somewhere with me. I didn't find it funny at all, and thought it was kind of insulting to southern people. It made some of them out to be caricatures of what they really are like. And without great storytelling, the movie is just painful to get through.

The film's plot revolves around two good ole southern girls from the small Georgia town of Johnson's Mark, Bell and Belle (really?). Bell (Laura Breckenridge) has been friends with Belle (Anna Faris) since they were kids or as she puts it, 'knee high to a grasshopper', and have only known lot number 314 in the trailer park. And after Belle decides that the pair was meant for a better life, the plot is off and running as they plan how to get to their dreamland, Atlanta. I'll wait for you to stop laughing before I continue. Done? Alright.

Their life in Johnson's Mark is really just a whole bunch of southern cliches lumped together. Nosy neighbor who has an overweight child that likes to fart, a drunk boyfriend who tries to act black (he doesn't listen to hip hop, it's hill hop)and likes fast cars, and they both work at soul sucking jobs; Bell as a bartender and Belle as a clerk in a supermarket. There's not much more depth than that, and the characters really feel 2D. The only glimmer of an interesting story is the throwaway scene near the end where they hint that Belle may be a lesbian, but of course since she's a southern girl, there's no way this could be revealed.

The direction was kind of simple. There was only less than 10 locations and none of them all that dynamic, which confuses me because this was filmed in Wilmington, N.C. There are some pretty locations down there that could have at least made the visuals better even if the script was crap.

Faris's performance is best described as, meh. She performs her normal mannerisms and line delivery, but you could tell she didn't really believe what she was saying, and Breckenridge was very mediocre. No one really stood out, but the best performance was by Justin Chambers as, Officer Rhett Butler (yes, he did deliver an 'I don't give a damn line). Best is relative though as the whole movie was very forgettable.

"Southern Belles" attempted to be a light-hearted southern comedy, but came off as slightly insulting. While not a masterpiece in its own right, "Sweet Home Alabama" with Reese Witherspoon did a better job of telling a story without turning the residents into cartoons versions of real life southerners.

Rating: 4/10 -- I don't remember even laughing once. But the acting wasn't bad so it's probably now a complete disaster. Probably has a niche audience as a guilty pleasure.