Gary Arnold of "The Washington Post" thought the film "runs a merely weak comic premise into the ground with coarse, laborious execution." Arnold thought that Dolly Parton was the film's "only reassuring aspect", as she seemed "an instantly likable natural on the movie screen, too." David Ansen of "Newsweek" called the film "a disappointment ... It's not wild or dark enough to qualify as a truly disturbing farce and it's too fanciful and silly to succeed as realistic satire. Politically and esthetically, it's harmless—a mildly amusing romp that tends to get swallowed up by its own overly intricate plot."