Seeming to have a certain appetite for the pageant genre and the emotional turmoil it can cause (see: Insatiable), Netflix has seen fit to bring us Anne Fletcher’s Dumplin’, based on Julie Murphy’s 2015 YA novel of the same name. Fletcher, who is seasoned in both the rom-com (27 Dresses and The Proposal) and road trip comedy (The Guilt Trip and Hot Pursuit), brings us all the elements of her well-timed ability to pull at heartstrings thanks to Kristin Hahn’s (who has produced past Jennifer Aniston films The Switch and Cake) screenplay.
Not one to shy away from the topic of being an underdog when it comes to weight discrimination after her breakout role as Patricia “Patti” Dombrowski in 2017’s Patti Cake$, Danielle Macdonald takes on the role of Willowdean Dickson–nicknamed “Dumplin'” by her own mother–with effortless chip on her shoulder aplomb. But then, what girl, overweight or not, wouldn’t hold a grudge against an ex beauty queen mom, Rosie (Aniston), who remains so obsessed with pageant life that she leaves it to her sister, Lucy (Hilliary Begley), to raise her “unsightly” spawn?
Through every pageant season and every teasing barrage that Willowdean must endure, Lucy is there to guide her–via the lens of Dolly Parton. Instructing her on the wisdom of the woman who once said, “It’s a good thing I was born a girl, otherwise I’d be a drag queen,” Lucy teaches her niece how to weather just about any storm (Dolly also said that “storms make trees take deeper roots”), except the one where Willowdean has to go on living without her. Luckily, Lucy was prudent enough to introduce Ellen “El” Dryver (Odeya Rush) into her life early on so that she has a best friend who also loves Dolly just as much to help her on the rest of her journey. One that inevitably involves butting heads with Rosie, equally stubborn in her commitment to the Miss Teen Bluebonnet Pageant as Willowdean is to her mockery of it.
When Rosie publicly refers to her as Dumplin’ while dropping her off at school (why god why must being dropped off at school always be the nexus of embarrassment?), it leads her to beat up one of her usual tormentors and get suspended. With Rosie forced to come and collect her again, the two come to blows not only over the nickname (“You call me that because that’s how you see me”), but also Rosie’s cold behavior toward the death of her sister, all too ready to empty out her room and donate all of her possessions. Accusing Rosie of not even knowing anything about Lucy because she could never see beyond her weight, Willowdean finally decides to take a stand against what her mother stands for. “A protest in heels,” as El calls it, by daring to enter the pageant herself. This decision, of course, is solidified after coming across an incomplete entry form Lucy had filled out to compete when she was Willowdean’s age.
Inspiring an unlikely crusade, Willowdean also incites fellow “fat girl” and genuinely interested in winning Millicent “Millie” Michalchuk (Maddie Baillio), anti-patriarchal rebel Hannah Perez (Bex Taylor-Klaus) and, naturally, her bestie, El, to participate in vague solidarity. All much to Rosie’s chagrin, concerned as she is with preserving the integrity of the institution against the likes of people wanting to sing Beyonce songs despite the lyrics violating strict bylaw rules. As she puts it, “The difference between winning and losing is all in the details.” And losing dignity means incorporating Beyonce into a Texas pageant despite Beyonce herself being from Texas.
In between offending her mother’s sensibilities with her general effrontery (not even bothering to memorize the group choreography) and worshipping Dolly, Willowdean must also work an after school job at a burger joint called, unfortunately, Harpy’s. It is here that she entertains what she assumes is the bored flirtations of Bo Larson (Luke Benward), the restaurant’s too pretty to be working cook. Yet when she comes to find that his affections might actually be genuine, it makes her even more upset than the idea that he could never like her as she is (as Mark Darcy claimed to of Bridget in Bridget Jones’ Diary). For she’s too preoccupied with the terrible things people would say about them if they saw them together outside of a working environment. But Dolly would only remind her, “When you decide you want the love that once you could’ve had/Well that’s gonna be too bad and you’re gonna be sorry.”
However, in keeping with twenty-first century movie feminism, Dumplin’ has other things to focus on before she can care too much about a guy’s feelings. So it is that she finally takes her “talent” seriously and allows one of the drag queens, Candee Disch (Ginger Minj), at The Hideaway (a remote biker bar with weekly Dolly tribute nights, ergo making it a regular former watering hole for Lucy) to teach her the “magical” ways of performing a sleight of hand–while lip-syncing “Here You Come Again” (ironically featuring the lyrics, “Here you come again, lookin’ better than a body has a right to” as a nod to Dumplin’s own unjustly maligned body).
Her triumph in being able to surprise those who were so willing to write her off–most especially her mother (who karmically cannot fit into her usual presenting dress any longer)–is in keeping with Dolly’s lifelong gospel of empowering others to empower themselves. That Dolly owned a copy of the book Dumplin’ before ever knowing she would play such an integral part in its film adaptation speaks to the greater destiny of the story, tailor-made to have Parton as its talisman. Accordingly touting the merits of loyalty and “every body is a swimsuit body,” Dumplin’ is expectedly filled with positive messages to rebrand what ought to be seen as “beautiful” (which has always been subjective whether we want to look to Hollywood’s objective template for self-flagellation or not).
While surely motivational to those who yearn to see a change in the often narrow-minded and discriminatory ways of the beauty pageant world, Dumplin’ isn’t going to topple Drop Dead Gorgeous or Miss Italia in terms of life-changing beauty queen movies anytime soon. But the soundtrack–filled with powerful missive after powerful missive from Dolly’s hit-packed career–just might make it memorable enough to one day.
