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List Price: $9.94 | | Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Salesrank: 26004
Released: September 25, 2001 |
| Our Price: $8.99 |
| Used Price: $4.55 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Dress Code, called Bruno when it debuted on cable, is Shirley MacLaine's first feature as director. Like many of the movies in which she has appeared, it's a drama that uses humor to get its message across. Bruno (Alex D. Linz) is a gradeschooler who lives with his mother and likes to wear dresses. It's one more thing that makes him stand out at Catholic school. Even before his secret gets out, the other kids tease him because he's small and smart--a spelling whiz that reads the dictionary for fun with a mother that is, as he puts it, "flamboyant." His estranged father (Gary Sinise) notes that Angela also weighs 450 pounds, which makes her flamboyance even harder to miss. She means well, however, which can't be said for most of the other people in Bruno's life, with the exception of new girl, Shaniqua, who likes to dress up as well (as a cowgirl). Dress Code raises more questions than it answers (like why Angela doesn't remove her son from a school that shows him so little support), but MacLaine keeps the action moving and the cast rises to the occasion, although it would have been nice if Gwen Verdon's role had lasted more than a few seconds. It should be noted that the film contains some profanity (mostly from Bruno's tormentors), and it isn't until the end that the nuns are depicted in a less-than-negative light (including Kathy Bates as a cigarette-smoking Mother Superior). --Kathleen C. Fennessy
The Dress Code Reviews:
The film should have been a hit 
2009-06-18 - I never even heard of "The Dress Code,"or "Bruno"as its tittled also.This really is a different movie,and everyone is wonderfull,especially the young boy.Shirley McClain directed this gem,and she also stars as Bruno's Grandmother.There's a nice message to this film,and its not about transgender,or feminization,but about being yourself no matter what.
Love This Movie
2009-05-04 - This movie is sooo... cute. Especially the scene with the Grandmother and the kid when she offers him a drink! We bought a copy so we could see it again, but my husband keeps lending it out so we haven't had a chance.
The Dress Code
2008-09-25 - Great movie. May be hard for some individuals to get into at first, and it doesn't turn out the way most people would expect. My husband was mad at me until Shirley MacLaine came into the story, and he realized he had misjudged what the movie was actually about. Once he reached that point, he was glad he had stayed around to watch it.
A great movie to watch for people who have weight issues 
2008-07-29 - I really enjoyed this one because it dealt with weight issues and how it effects child rearing and marriages. I really felt for the leading lady and also for the child caught up in it all.
Positive message, but... 
2008-03-17 - I would like to make it clear that I approve of this film's message. Children should be encouraged, or at least allowed, to express themselves in unconventional ways. I agree with Robert Bly's observation that those parts of ourselves that we suppress by "putting them in a bag" will become more primitive and dangerous. If we don't allow the boy to wear a dress when he's eight, he might grow up to become the "Buffalo Bill" character in "Silence of the Lambs."
Unfortunately, the other characters, almost without exception, embody the crassest stereotypes. Especially galling is the character of the boy's mother, who on at least three occasions, is shown ordering or eating enormous amounts of food, and at one point, actually has a heart attack. It would have been far more interesting had Joey Lauren Adams played the boy's mother, with Gary Sinise abandoning her for the other actress. But that would have required real unconventional thinking.
