Pretty Hurts

Lauren , a high school senior, is over the moon when she receives her acceptance letter to her dream university, marking a major step toward her lifelong goal of becoming a doctor. But that excitement quickly fades as she and her parents, including mom, Julie, face the harsh reality of tuition costs. In hopes of winning scholarship money, Lauren makes a decision that goes against everything she promised herself as a child - she enters the same beauty pageant her mother once dominated in her youth. While Julie is eager to relive the glory of her own pageant days and share one last bonding experience with her daughter, Lauren is thrust into a dark, toxic world of cutthroat competition and psychological manipulation, all hidden behind bleached white smiles and rhinestone gowns. Too preoccupied with the pageant, Lauren doesn't realize that her best friend Rae (Kaci Barker) is falling seriously ill with a potentially deadly but vaccine-preventable disease - meningitis B - prompting her to turn the pageant platform into a tool for awareness and education.