Verdict: Hackneyed subject plus inept direction equals a waste of a lot of talent.

Details: Starring Minnie Driver and Joey Lauren Adams. Rated PG-13 for language, mother-daughter tensions. One hour, 52 minutes.

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Review: "Yes, but what I really want to do is direct."

It is a common refrain, one which has led to some fine films from the likes of Robert Redford, Clint Eastwood, Penny Marshall and, later this year with Pollock, Ed Harris. It is not always an easy transition, though, as Sally Field now demonstrates with her awkward, alternately sour and sappy feature directorial debut, Beautiful.

She certainly did not choose fresh subject matter in this story of a self-esteem-challenged woman, who has been obsessed since she was JonBenet Ramsey's age with the validation that comes from winning a beauty contest. Suffice it to say that Field and her credited screenwriter, Jon Bernstein, never approach the satirical edge of Michael Ritchie's Smile, but settle instead for the clumsiness of the more recent pageant send-up, Drop Dead Gorgeous.

Ambitious, love-starved Mona Hibbard (Minnie Driver) will do anything to win, from putting Krazy Glue on the fire baton of a rival to denying her relationship to her out-of-wedlock daughter Vanessa (dimpled, curly top Hallie Kate Eisenberg). This latter selfishness is accomplished by foisting the kid off on Mona's too-good-to-be-true girl friend Ruby (Joey Lauren Adams, a squeaky-voiced, low-rent Renee Zellweger clone).

But get this melodramatic twist. Nurse Ruby is wrongfully convicted of mercy killing a patient, so Mona has to raise, and frequently hide from sight, precocious Vanessa. One of the more ludicrous scenes -- in a crowded field of choices -- sees Mona visiting Ruby in jail and asking for more child-rearing help from the shut-in. Gradually, Vanessa grows suspicious, because she looks an awful lot like Mona, a fact that is not lost on the other contestants in the climactic Miss American Miss pageant.

Field's visual flair is as weak as her storytelling skill, a problem not helped by the minimal production design budget. The pageant looks especially cheesy, which could not be intentional because Beautiful wipes away all attempts at comedy for a rousing, albeit preposterous, conclusion.

As attractive as Driver is, it is hard to buy her really vying with the classically statuesque Stepford models she is pitted against. When it comes to the talent competition, we are supposed to be awed by Driver's thin-voiced rendition of Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow and her slinky dance moves, both simply embarrassing.

You will see it coming from the beginning, but Mona is one of the most unlikable characters that moviegoers have been asked to scorn and then suddenly embrace. Field fails to make a case for us to like her, really like her.

Sidekick Adams is a more pleasant presence, even when stuck with an unplayable saintly role. More than a little of Eisenberg is hard to take, but she is dealt the movie's best lines and she delivers them with studied precision.

In a brief appearance as a mercenary beauty contest coach, Kathleen Turner brings to mind Cathy Moriarty's bitchy, butchy caricature in But I'm a Cheerleader.

There may be a way to inject some freshness into the hackneyed comic target of beauty contests, but Field and Bernstein are not up to the task. They certainly lack the skill to mix light comedy with such heavy subjects as child abuse, near incest and euthanasia.

Granted that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it isn't hard to see that Beautiful is skin deep, at best.

— Hap Erstein, Cox News Service