She Cleans Up Nicely / Live-Action Films

OK, now I'm definitely joining the book club.

Examples of She Cleans Up Nicely in live-action films.

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• Nikita: Nikita is assigned a trainer whose job is to make Nikita more feminine, which will make her a better deep cover agent.
  Amande: There are two things that are infinite: femininity and means to take advantage of it.
• Allison Reynolds in The Breakfast Club gets a makeover from Claire, with her hair combed away from her face, and wearing a light colored shirt. This draws the attention of both Andy and Brian when she appears in the doorway, looking very polished.
• The non-canonical The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning, where Daisy is a mousy, nerdy, timid little girl... until the day she puts on a pair of tight cutoff jeans, wearing a shirt tied to show her midriff and lets her hair down — and there you have a stunningly, ravishing, eye-candy hot-hot-hottie!
• In the 2008 Japanese film Ichi, hapless samurai Toma meets the title character — a blind swordswoman — when she is in a goze's customary rags. When she's called to play for the local yakuza boss to celebrate Toma's hiring as a bodyguard, though, he is visibly stunned by how she looks in a kimono.
• Parasite (2019): Applies to some extent to the entire Kim family, who wear casual, slightly shabby, poorly fitting clothes at home, but dress much more nicely to look presentable when they're out of the house, especially when they're working at the Park household. It makes the biggest difference with Chung-sook, who looks extremely plain and homely throughout the first half of the movie, and then looks like a completely different person when she's hired as a housekeeper at the Park household, where she appears in nice clothes, a cleaner haircut, and probably a bit of makeup.
• Rocky
  • Adrian from the original Rocky is the Trope Codifier.
  • In Rocky III, it's Rocky who cleans up and starts wearing suits.
• In Enchanted, the example is recursive. Giselle shows up at the ball (with Edward in tow) in this fashion. Funnily enough, the ball is an "old fashioned fancy dress" kind, involving clothing of the sort Giselle's been wearing for the whole movie — except now she shows up in a fairly simple modern dress. Robert still gets distracted away from his date Nancy, who is also dressed up fancily. The reason for Giselle's very striking effect is that she suddenly looks like a grown woman instead of a little girl playing dress-up with the Disney Princess dresses she'd worn until then.
• Used retroactively in the book and The Film of the Book Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In the book, Harry wonders who that pretty girl in a blue dress on Victor Krum's arm is, and nearly falls over when he realizes it's Hermione; Ron has an even worse reaction. Used straight, however, in the movie (because nobody in the audience could ever fail to recognize Emma Watson). According to the extras in the DVD release, that was one of the hardest scenes for Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint to get right, because although Ron and Harry had never seen Hermione all dolled up before, they had seen Emma done up to the nines on many occasions.
• In Titanic (1997) Rose DeWitt Bukater descends the grand staircase of the RMS Titanic, drawing the obligatory wide-eyed expression from Jack Dawson. However, most of their fellow passengers' comments are focused on the fact it's Jack who cleans up nicely. Molly even says "You shine up like a new penny!" This is partly due to the fact that Rose was wearing a rather pretty dress to dinner the night before, and seeing her dressed up would be a frequent event.
• The title character from Carrie. The 70s film alludes to it early, when Miss Collins suggests things she could do to her appearance for the prom. In the 2002 TV movie, one of the girls immediately compliments Carrie on her ass.
• Batman Returns has Selina Kyle's transformation from mousy secretary into Catwoman. She then also looks very attractive when dressed up in civilian evening dress as well.
• The Stolen Caravaggio has quick-thinking Valeria going in *seconds* from mousy secretary to a vampier persona and attire in order to get out of a situation. Apparently, she finds she likes it and sticks with it for the rest of the movie. Might be an attempt at Heavy Meta given that the movie is chock full of it.
• My Fair Lady has this moment for Eliza just before the ball, when she comes downstairs from her room and Higgins sees her in her gown for the first time.
• The entire point of the movie Miss Congeniality. The scene where Gracie originally walks out of the hangar, in a tight short knit dress with her hair up and makeup on, has all of her fellow FBI agents standing there with their jaws dropping. Then she stumbles on her heels and falls on her face immediately afterwards.
  Eric: (after Gracie trips) Oh, yeah. That's her.
• Patrick and Kat have this effect on each other in 10 Things I Hate About You.
• In an inversion of the trope, Australia has the male lead follow the trope nearly to the letter at a charity ball.
• The Mummy (1999):
  • Gender-inverted after Rick O'Connell is rescued from the gallows. His shiny reappearance is nicely timed to Evelyn's rant about what a filthy, rude, complete scoundrel he is.
  • Evie herself gets a moment like this; before they go on their expedition, we are used to seeing her in dowdy and plain librarian's clothes; but after they escape from the ship, Evie appears wearing an Bedouin-inspired black dress and veil. It certainly made Rick's eyes widen.
• In the pee-wee football themed movie Little Giants, Becky "Icebox" O'Shea (a girl who plays halfback) falls in love with the team's quarterback and decides to go be a cheerleader instead, cleaning up nicely in the process. Of course, since the quarterback liked the girl who played halfback as opposed to a cheerleader, she un-cleans and wins the big game instead.
• Happens in Bend It Like Beckham, when the girls are in Germany and Jessminder has nothing to wear for the party.
• Steven Spielberg's Always. Holly Hunter's character is a pilot and dispatcher who always dresses in dirty overalls. Her boyfriend Richard Dreyfuss buys her a white dress for her birthday. She puts it on and all the other male pilots are stunned and they quickly wash their hands and line up to take turns to dance with her to "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes".
• In Watchmen, Laurie Jupiter walks down the stairs to the Owl Cave in her Silk Spectre outfit, in slow motion with music and Nite Owl open-mouthed.
• It happens to Cathy in Vacation from Marriage. She's played by Deborah Kerr, no less, so her transformation isn't so shocking.
• Male example in the first George of the Jungle movie:
  Narrator: Later, in the Men's Department, after discovering his long lost brothers, the jungle king was pleased to find he looked pretty good in Armani.
  George: Pretty darn good!
• Parodied in Not Another Teen Movie. Jenny goes downstairs in her new dress and without glasses, with her family and Jake just unable to believe their eyes... then suddenly a tread breaks and she falls to the bottom of the stairs.
• Downplayed in The Princess Diaries, despite it being the Trope Image. Mia gets two moments where she has to put on a fancy gown. The first has her descending the staircase - but the focus is more on her behaviour than her looks. The second is where she arrives late to the grand ball all wet from the rain outside. After she's made her speech, she changes into her Pimped-Out Dress. The sequel plays it for laughs when Lily has to dress up for Mia's wedding.
  Lily: "I'm a girl who likes black and I'm wearing pink!"
• Jennifer Love Hewitt's character in Trojan War 1997.
• Dragonslayer: After Valerian is revealed as a female to the hero Galen, she appears at a social event in feminine garb, causing jaws to impact the floor, including Galen's.
• Averted with Mui in Shaolin Soccer; she starts off as rather plain with acne and when she tries to doll herself up she looks even worse. She's at her most attractive when she shaves her head to pass herself off as a boy, and it's her martial arts/goalie skills that ultimately win over the male lead.
• Played straight in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Toula starts off frumpy, and then later on she ditches the glasses in favor of contacts, and starts wearing makeup, proving she was Beautiful All Along.
• Jane's reaction to a fully restored Thor in Thor. Please note that she was already attracted to him before, when he was just an exceptionally well-built guy.
  Jane: (grinning) This is how you normally look?
  Thor: More or less.
  Jane: It's a good look.
• Played subtly near the end of The Journey of Natty Gann, when Natty and Harry reach Seattle after days of hopping trains and hiking cross-country and Natty gets the chance to actually wash her face and comb her hair. Harry is visibly startled the first time he gets a good look at her after she's cleaned up.
• Played with in Some Kind of Wonderful. Tomboy Watts has spent the entire movie dressed in raggedy old hand-me-down men's clothes. In the last act, when she agrees to chauffeur her best friend (and crush) Keith and his crush, Amanda, around on their date, she decides to get dressed up. The effect is striking, and she's much more attractive—but she's not wearing a dress. Instead, she's dolled up in a male chauffeur's uniform. Keith doesn't seem to mind.
• In the James Bond film Licence to Kill, CIA agent Pam Bouvier is insulted by the idea that she should play Bond's secretary, but when she shows up at the Bank in the dress she bought with the money Bond gave her, he's so stunned by how beautiful she looks that he does a Double Take.
• Casino Royale (2006) does this with Vesper. She was previously only dressed in "masculine" business suits, but has to wear an evening gown for the poker game - one which James personally selects. She gets a head-turning reaction from the rest of the players, but gets this from James, having entered from the wrong door deliberately to mess with him.
  Methis: I don't think I need to tell you how beautiful you look. Half the men at that table are still staring at you.
• Iron Man: Pepper Potts starts off the film wearing plain, dark business suits with her hair pulled back. But for the Stark charity gala halfway through the film, she styles her hair and wears a sexy blue backless dress, stunning her playboy employer, who finally starts looking at her as a romantic interest rather than just his long-suffering secretary.
• Laney Boggs from She's All That. In this case, it happens just before she's about to go to a party - overlapping with Beautiful All Along. When she goes to the prom later in the movie, it doesn't happen a second time (though she does still look nice).
• A variation where it happens in Snow White: A Tale of Terror near the start of the film. Our first image of the older Lilli is her in a nightgown, so she arrives at the ball wearing her mother's dress to the surprise of many guests.
• In Calamity Jane, the title character is constantly wearing unfeminine apparel and even gets mistaken for a man once or twice due to her clothing choices. It makes the moment later on when she attends a ball and takes off her big, thick coat, revealing a dress and lovely figure, a shock to everyone present. And when Bill - her date - sees her with her coat off, he thinks she's someone else before it mentally clicks two seconds later and he turns around, stunned and mouth agape. The rest of the men at the ball are pleasantly surprised along with him.
  Calamity: How come all these galoots wanna dance with me? At that shindig down at Hogan's stable, none of them came around.
  Bill: I didn't know.
  Calamity: Spent most of the night chattin' with the mules.
  Bill: Well, it's what I've been a tellin' ya all this time... You look better in a dress.
  • Earlier in the film, Bill accurately predicted that she'd fulfill this trope if she ever took the time to dress up.
    Bill: Hey, Calam, do me a favor!
    Calamity: What?
    Bill: When you get to Chicage, notice the women, how they act and what they wear. Get yourself some female clothes and fixins'. You know, dresses, ribbons, perfume, things like that.
    Calamity: Look, if you don't like the way I smell-
    Bill: Oh, it ain't nothin' personal... Only if you ever crawled out of that deer hide and dolled up a bit, I got a hunch you'd be a passable pretty gal.
    Calamity: ...Well. You can save your hunches for females that get their pictures took in long underwear. I ain't one of them!
    Bill: (laughs loudly)
• The Professional: 12-year-old Mathilda usually dresses in midriff-exposing outfits, but she changes into a beautiful pink dress after Leon rescues her from the middle of DEA Headquarters. Then she starts talking about the importance of losing your virginity with someone you love, giving Leon a serious Oh, Crap! moment.
• A gender-inverted example in Underworld (1927), where Rolls Royce, once he combs his hair, shaves, and puts on a nice suit, is barely even recognizable as the hobo from before.
• U.S. Marshals: Sam, who lives his entire life in denim, shows up for drinks with his team of marshals in a suit. Said team has a collective moment of appreciation before they start teasing him about it.
• Sabrina develops a more sophisticated fashion sense and self-confident persona after spending a few years in Paris, consequently becoming part of a Sibling Triangle with the sons of her father's boss.
• Jonas and Kelly in Squatters are dirty and bedraggled at the beginning of the movie, as they're homeless. After they bathe and dress up, they look pretty sharp.
• In A Girl Named Sooner, the unschooled little mountain child who grew up in a dirty shack is made pretty with the application of one bath and a new dress.
• Always: Dorinda Durston is shown on a fire aviation airstrip, surrounded by pilots, and mechanics and sooty firemen. For her birthday, her boyfriend gets her some "girl clothes", an off-the-shoulder form-fitting white dress, that has the entire house lining up to dance with her.
• An understated version occurs in A Gunfight. Abe Cross arrives in town after months prospecting in the desert. Following a bath, shave, haircut and a new set of clothes, Jenny watches him walk along the street from an upstairs window and remarks that he looks "almost handsome".
• In Seven Brides for Seven Brothers Milly is pleased to note how handsome her six new brothers-in-law are after she forces them to wash and shave in exchange for breakfast.
• The White Orchid: Claire initially has very plain, modest attire with her hair in a simple bun. She slowly dolls herself up with makeup, a wig and fancy clothing, stepping into The White Orchid's shoes to make herself really shine. Even before she'd gone to this point, people complimented Claire simply on doing things such as letting down her hair and wearing a nicer outfit (she was pretty already, just not flattering herself much).
• A Knight's Tale: William starts the movie with long, knotted hair and a beard that covers most of his face. To complete his disguise as "Sir Ulrich" he cuts his hair and shaves making him look a lot more presentable. Meanwhile, Geoffrey Chaucer is introduced naked but covered in dirt and blood after getting beaten up for failing to pay his gambling debts. He too looks a lot better once he's bathed and given some clothes by the main characters.
• Katherine from Blue Iguana (2018) was already cute, but when she puts on nicer clothes and lets her hair down, Eddie is so struck by the difference that opera music starts playing in the background.
• Borat Subsequent Moviefilm features the title character's daughter Tutar, who opens with severe Beauty Inversion to actress Maria Bakalova. Then she undergoes a makeover to serve as a "prize bride", and the improvement is massive◊.
• Sweet Hostage: When Leonard first abducts Doris Mae, she's wearing a men's shirt and jeans due to spending most of her time helping out on the farm. After Stockholm Syndrome sets in, Doris Mae persuades him to buy her a blue dress on one of his trips into town to buy supplies. He's amazed by how beautiful she looks in it, and she's delighted to look like a lady for once.
• Harley Quinn has this reaction to herself in The Suicide Squad, after her makeover at the behest of Silvio Luna. Her assessment when she sees herself in a mirror: "...I'm a princess!"
• Princess of Thieves: After having short hair and masculine attire for most of the film (when she's largely disguised as a boy), Gwyn is shown with her hair coiffed neatly and wearing a dress at the end, with her quite lovely (not that she was ugly in disguise either).
• The Apple Dumpling Gang: Magnolia "Dusty" Clydesdale usually lives up to her nickname, dressing much like the menfolk in her old-West town, complete with dust-covered pants, vest and floppy hat. After Donovan rescues their adopted children, tho, she decides their arranged marriage is worth more than just lip-service so she cleans up and dons a fancy dress. As she descends a staircase to let him see her in all her finery for the first time, she's also carrying a parasol. He stares at her in surprise and admiration.
• Firehouse Dog: While not unattractive, Pep, the fireshouses mechanic, spends most of the movie with her hair up and in the same uniform as the other firefighters, making it a drastic change when she dresses up for the firefighter’s gala, with her hair down and wearing a floor-length dress.
• Through Black Spruce: After meeting Geeta, a model who was her sister's roommate, Annie puts on the makeup and an outfit which her sister Suzanne left behind. Though she is beautiful regardless, before she'd worn plain, more utilitarian clothing and looks stunning in them, as Geeta gushes about.

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