In small-town Minnesota, Amber and Becky, two teenage girls from very different backgrounds, become rivals after they both enter a local beauty pageant. While the two girls prepare for the contest, their mothers will stop at nothing to help their child win.

Before Miss Congeniality and Little Miss Sunshine, the stars-and-stripes phenomenon of beauty pageantry was caricatured in this wickedly acerbic mockumentary. Twinkling with comic talent, a young Kirsten Dunst channels Lisa Simpson-ish spirit into the role of a girl who won’t stand for corruption.