Miss Firecracker

It’s a low-budget production with major-league acting by Mary Steenburgen, Holly Hunter and Alfre Woodard. It’s not directed sharply enough; Thomas Schlamme is particularly weak on the fight scenes. Read full review

Highly amusing and well paced, an engaging fairy-tale with a slightly sinister underbelly. Read full review

Ultimately, there's not enough genuine wildness to these dark, passionate and half-crazy people. Miss Firecracker is the South made cute. Read full review

The movie is never plain boring, but its comic pathos and Southern-gothic cuteness can grate on you.

Hasn't the South as a cornucopia of Lovable Eccentrics worn out its welcome? After Tennessee Williams? After Carson McCullers? After -- what, you say your appetite for L.E.'s is insatiable? Then Miss Firecracker, which Beth Henley has adapted from her 1984 play, is your heaping platter of that delicacy. [01 May 1989, p.75]

The film seems thin, a set of vignettes about a fairly consistent set of characters. -- but only fairly consistent. [17 May 1989, p.B05]

There is a sweet gentility about Beth Henley's work as a playwright and a screenwriter, even though her best efforts stumble badly when they move from stage to screen. [16 May 1989, p.1D]

Director Thomas Schlamme's unsure handling of scenes and indiscriminate use of unappealing close-ups of actors emoting at full steam only emphasize the material's weakness. Read full review

Miss Firecracker is a movie that tries too hard. You want to like it, but in the end it just tires you out. Read full review

A superficial and sporadically witty piece aimed at such easy targets as family squabbles, small-town folk and beauty contests. The film is not actively awful; just dull and banal. [28 Apr 1989, p.C12]