Critical reception
The Beautician and the Beast received primarily negative responses, holding a score of 19% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 21 reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film two stars, praising Drescher's performance but saying audiences would be unable to empathize with her character, since "we never feel she's really uncertain, insecure or vulnerable". Film.com's Eric Snider criticized the plot for lacking humor and character development. In a negative review of the script, the Chicago Tribune's Gene Siskel wished that the film was smarter with its parody of The Sound of Music. On the other hand, TV Guide's Maitland McDonagh and IGN's Arnold T. Blumberg considered The Beautician and the Beast to be inoffensive and fluffy enough to be enjoyable. In a review for The Philadelphia Inquirer, Carrie Rickey described the film as the "tastykake of snack movies" and "shameless and intermittently funny".
Reviewers criticized the film as too similar to a sitcom, including The New York Times' Stephen Holden who said Kwapis and Graff did not elevate the material enough to justify a theatrical release. In an Entertainment Weekly article, Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote that The Beautician and the Beast and the 1997 film Fools Rush In were "hampered, to greater or lesser degree, by the synthetic conceits of their stretched-out stories". Commentators felt Joy was just a copy of Fran Fine, Drescher's character on The Nanny, and believed the film was a poor example of the romantic comedy genre. The San Diego Reader's Duncan Shepherd dismissed The Beautician and the Beast as an "inverted and cut-rate Ninotchka". Describing the film as a "dated '90s [romantic comedy]", Grace Montgomery, writing for Common Sense Media, said it relied too much on clichés and stereotypes. In a 2015 listicle, Refinery29's Erin Donnelly included Joy and Boris among those romantic comedy pairings which lacked chemistry. However, in the same year, Lauren Le Vine for the same publication considered the film a classic, and praised the chemistry between Drescher and Dalton as an "awkward friction".
Drescher's performance received mixed reviews. Emanuel Levy praised Drescher as "a warm, funny and likable performer", although he believed she was too old to play an ingénue. Levy likened her voice and Jewish mannerisms to Fanny Brice and Barbra Streisand. Praising the film for having the "postwar naivete" of the 1950s film, the Chicago Tribune's John Petrakis wrote that Drescher's style, specifically her "big hair, thick makeup, loud clothes, and bizarre voice", was reminiscent of Judy Holliday. In more negative comparisons, Jeff Vice called Drescher and Dalton inferior actors to Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner, respectively, and Eric Snider panned her role as "a hell-spawned, snort-laughing Mary Poppins". Drescher's voice was the frequent subject of criticism; Maitland McDonagh said she had a "nasal honk [that] could shatter crystal", but believed her fans would enjoy her performance. Drescher received a nomination for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress for the 18th Golden Raspberry Awards.
Critics also had mixed reviews for Dalton's performance. The Washington Post's Rita Kempley praised Dalton for his campy style, and the Deseret News' Jeff Vice wrote that he had "well-chosen facial expressions and some subtle nuances". Despite finding Dalton to be "eventually amiable", Stephen Hunter said The Beautician and the Beast was not a star-making vehicle for him. In a review for the Los Angeles Times, John Anderson enjoyed Dalton's comedic acting, but wrote that "everyone ... comes off as stiff next to Drescher". Maitland McDonagh considered Dalton too serious, however, believing he cast "a damper on the strenuously lighthearted goings-on". In the Lincoln Journal Star, a writer said Dalton had a "constipated scowl", which they felt was an "appropriate mood for sitting through The Beautician and the Beast".
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