The Beautician and the Beast (1997) on Netflix
Joy Miller, a New York City beautician, is mistaken for a science teacher by a diplomat from Slovetzia. He hires her to tutor the children of the country's dictator, Boris Pochenko.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb5.5/1010,702 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes22%
Trailer
Plot summary
A student's cigarette ignites hair spray in a New York City beauty school classroom, and Joy Miller brings her class and some caged animals out safely. A newspaper photo of the rescue leads Ira Grushinsky, a diplomat from the Eastern European nation of Slovetzia, to mistake her for a science teacher. He offers her a post tutoring the four children of Slovetzia's dictator, Boris Pochenko, and Joy, who has never heard of the country and believes she has been hired to teach hairstyling, accepts. At the castle, Ira realizes who she really is, and she persuades him to keep the mistake a secret.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Beautician and the Beast (1997)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Timothy Dalton was announced as part of the cast in July 1996 after Drescher's first choice for Boris, Kevin Kline, proved unavailable; Kwapis said that Dalton had "a lot of charm and a very gentle tone".
- Joy was Drescher's first starring role in a feature film, and worried about the audience's response to her move to film she modeled the character on her previous performances, so that they "wouldn't have to bite off more than they can chew" accepting her.
- Kwapis recruited dialect coach Francie Brown to construct an entire fictional language for the film, Slovetzian, which contains influences from Czech, Russian, and Hungarian.
- The Beautician and the Beast was a box-office bomb, grossing roughly $11.5 million against a production budget of $16 million, and Drescher was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress.
- Drescher attributed the poor box office returns to the film debuting at the same time as the Star Wars "Special Edition" remaster.
