"It’s this reminder that no matter who you are, there will always be someone prettier or smarter or thinner. Perfection is nothing more than a phantom shadow we’re all chasing." This is one of the most powerful quotes from the movie. It really reminds us that perfection will never be attainable. Everyone can and should strive for it, but it’s safe to say that no one will ever attain the title of “perfection”. It doesn’t matter how famous or popular a person is. No one can be perfect in every way; It’s impossible. I think that everyone can learn something from this quote, and from the movie as a whole. “Dumplin” is about a girl named Willowdean Dickson. Willowdean is a sweet yet insecure girl from Texas who joins a beauty pageant out of protest against her mother. When Willowdean joins the pageant, she begins to lose herself in all of these terrible stereotypes and starts making poor decisions. She then has to find a way to make all of her mistakes she made right again. I love the idea of what this movie is trying to portray, but I don’t think that it was executed to the best of its ability. It was the little things like the setting and the character’s state of mind that just didn’t fit right for this movie, but the message is very powerful and a good one to build off of.

The first thing that I really didn’t like has got to be the overall choice of setting. The movie “Dumplin” is based in the small town of Clover City, Texas. I don’t think that this was the best setting for this type of movie to take place in. The setting mostly consisted of the things that people would probably associate with Texas. There were some fields, a couple of trees and very few plants. I was extremely annoyed by the immense lack of color. The setting as a whole was very brown and bland whereas I believe that it should have been a little bit greener and more colorful. The setting for a movie about a beauty pageant should have been way more vibrant than it was. In the beginning, I didn’t really understand why they would choose to have the setting in Texas, but once I thought about it for a little bit I began to understand why they ended up making that choice. Texas is actually one of the most successful states in the Miss USA pageant. For me, the setting just didn’t feel all that connected to the movie’s plot. If I had to choose a spot to film this movie in I would have chosen California in a heartbeat. California would have given “Dumplin” the color in the setting that it otherwise was lacking immensely in. Also, California is the 2nd most successful state in the Miss USA pageant. I think that this would have made a lot more sense for the movie if they really wanted to build off the movie’s storyline and the main character.

In this movie, the main character named Willowdean Dickson (Danielle Macdonald) is a sweet, southern girl. At the beginning of the movie Willowdean is ok with how she looks compared to other girls, but soon that will change for the worse. In the movie, Willowdean decides to sign up for a beauty pageant. It’s not really because she wants to, but because she wants to show up her mother. When she starts the pageant she immediately starts to change her attitude and mental state for the worse. Willowdean begins to believe all of these stereotypes that are not true about herself. One example is when she walks into the pageant for the very first time and looks around. Willowdean takes a look at all of the other competitors and immediately thinks that she has no chance to succeed because she is bigger than the stereotypical beauty pageant girl. If she knows she can’t possibly win the pageant why would she even bother trying? She doesn’t attend any of the mini-camps that were offered to help everyone get ready for the competition and she doesn’t try to make up routines or do anything to try and help prepare herself. It looks like she doesn’t want to be here. This might not be the attitude that they wanted to portray in this type of movie. If the director is going to try to prove a point that anybody can be in a pageant and compete, no matter what their size is, then it might have been a better idea if the main character looked more excited to be there, trying out something that is brand new. Otherwise, what was the point of even signing up?

Although there were aspects of the movie that I wasn’t a huge fan of, there was still many things that I really liked about the movie in general. My favorite part of the movie would have to be the message that the director was trying to portray. I like the idea that even if someone is bigger or smaller,  or even taller or shorter than another person that doesn’t make them better. Everyone should be treated equally, especially when it comes to their size. It is a very strong message that needs to be heard. I think that it was really interesting watching this movie because I got to see a different interpretation of this issue. Even though the message may have been slightly over exaggerated it still made sense. I almost like that it was over exaggerated a little bit because sometimes we just need to see it like that so we can get it into our heads that this is something that we need to fix immediately. I would say that if I was going to take one thing away from this movie to remember, it would definitely have to be the message.

I believe that the movie as a whole is definitely worth watching. Sure it has some things I don’t like about it, but overall the movie was pretty good. I don’t understand the directors reasoning behind making the setting bland, and the character’s attitude poor. But the message being portrayed is very powerful. The movie could have been executed a little bit better, but it’s mainly the minor details that held this movie back from being great. But in the end, nothing can be perfect, just like the quote said. I feel that this movie will put things in a new perspective for a ton of people, just like any good message from a movie should do. Even though there were a ton of mistakes that I felt were made during the movie, at the end of the day, “Dumplin” is definitely worth watching.