Beautiful Girls

Rating:
Summary: Way Too Hollywood to be beautiful
Review: This flick is about the sexual sensibilities of the men and women who are on the verge of losing the last vestiges of their youth. Set in a sleepy town in the dead of winter - in that time of year and place that nothing much happens, the return of Will (Tim Hutton), an aimless piano player, is enough to set all characters to contemplating their age. Will is young but listless work playing in bars and living off what's left in the tip-glass have aged him and sent him homeword bound from the big city. Arriving in town under everybody's radar, and after briefly touching base with his brother and father, Will links up with the unattached (...) who were his best buds in younger years. Though obviously hoping to use the small-town setting to make it look like a homespun, bitter-sweet comedy, an all-star cast immediately taints the script with a veneer of the phony, and attempts at drama turn the flick into a 2 hour sit-com. Matt Dillon sleeps around with a married woman while Paul (Michael Rappaport - if you saw "Copland", he played "Superboy" Babich; he also played Phoebe's cop/boyfriend on "Friends".) has already lost a gilrfriend, but the realization hasn't set in yet. Thinking he can get her back, Paul ignores his friends' advice to confront the competition (while Paul plows snow, his rival in love is a butcher; you can eat meat, his friends warn him). Instead, Paul's powers of romance have been stunted by his own worship of supermodels - the impossibly gorgeous women who inhabit the covers of Maxim, Stuff, FHM and the swimsuit issues of countless sports magazines, and seem to possess the power of the male universe. It's this cosmic power that makes love (or learning how to be loving) unnecessary. If you haven't gotten the point by now, "Beautiful Girls" is all about dumb male types who can't be considered "mature" until they confess their instinctual objectification of women; it's also about intelligent women who worry about how supermodel worship has destroyed males' capacity to relate to them. To make its point that men are genetically incapable of dealing with less-than gorgeous women, however, "Girls" leans on the talents and charms of a few pretty faces of its own (like Mira Sorvino, Uma Thurman and Natalie Portman), and proves itself prone to objectifying women by giving its comely leads little more occupy themselves with than men. In short, though the women are sharper of the species, they exist as nothing more than intelligent foils for men. "Beautiful Girls" doesn't have to be a 2 hour long chain of sit-com material, and it's plot manages to stay out of the way of most of the movie. However, the rest of the movie is otherwise so thin, you can't keep coming back to the realization that this is a relationship flick. Nothing else in this movie is remotely substantive. Though the characters are supposed to be friends in one form or another, there isn't a genuine relationship to be had anywhere in the script. When Willie first meets his father and brother again, the reunion seems empty, and they never spend any significant time in the movie. Then there's the central scene of the movie, where Paul's supermodel-obsession is revealed. On Planet Earth, Paul would be a certified (...) bereft of friends - but the script would hard-pressed to reveal his covergirl fantasies to unless he had some friends to confess to. Hutton's character is appropriately dismissive of Paul's covergirl-manifesto in that Hollywood way, (sarcasm, that is: "I am now going to check your freezer for human heads" Will says while Paul ernestly tries to explain to him why the forces of the universe are held sway by the Girls of "Stuff"). It's that obnoxious Hollywood brand of sarcasm, howver, the kind that's meant to hide how seriously it takes Paul's lunkhead theories. Sure, the script jokes, but pays Paul such heed that we can't just dismiss it as a joke and move on, and we're forced to concede that Paul's not alone in his peculiar obsession. (By then, the scriptwriters have assumed that we're buying Paul's ideas, and maybe we deserve to have our own refrigerators cheked.) Instead of putting all those broken characters together, the flick devotes and then indulges in siphoning all sorts of arch and knowing wisdom from its characters - the worst coming from Portman as a preternaturally wise teen with an old soul. (I didn't make that up - it's in the script.) Portman tosses off such arch zingers as "It's a tragedy of Elizabethan proportions" and "I can't play Pooh to your Christopher Robin"; By now, it's normal for every teenager to sound like they work on "Dawson's Creek" - with adult sensibilities to match their youthful appeal and conspicuous lack of adult responsibilities. (Though Hollywood routinely decries the objectification of women and the exploiattion of children, it's apparently perfectly acceptable to write films about intelligent women who freely subject themselves to the whim of utter jerks, and for underage teenage characters with adult sensibilities becoming fully interchangeable with adult characters on any subject). If you want to watch young adults confront their bemused bafflement on matters of the opposite sex, get the far superior "Singles".

Rating:
Summary: Featuring the Future Padme Amidala...
Review: A terrific ensemble cast brings this film to life, which focuses on the difficulties some face in making that final, "mental" leap from adolescence to adulthood, and spend way too many years trying to sort it all out. As one of the characters so tellingly puts it at one point, "I'm not anywhere close to being the man I thought I'd be--" and the denial, that failure to accept the fact that time stands still for no man, and the inability to choose which path to take when you hit that inevitable fork in the road, forms the basis for director Ted Demme's examination of how human nature affects the process of maturating, in "Beautiful Girls," a drama featuring Timothy Hutton, Matt Dillon and a young Natalie Portman.

Willie Conway (Hutton) is back home in the Midwest for his high school reunion, but more than that, to try and make some decisions about his future. He finds that nothing much has changed-- the town, or his old friends, most of whom seem to be exerting more time and energy attempting to cling to what was, rather than moving on with their lives. Tommy Rowland (Dillon), for instance, the high school "hero," as it were, now drives a snowplow; for all intents and purposes, his life "peaked" in high school, and he can't seem to get past it. Then there's Paul (Michael Rapaport), who just doesn't seem to want to grow up; after a seven year relationship with Jan (Martha Plimpton), he refuses to make that final commitment-- after all, "What's the rush?"

All of which does nothing to help Willie with his own dilemma; the only words of wisdom he gets from anyone, in fact, come from the precocious thirteen-year-old, Marty (Natalie Portman), who lives next door. But in a couple of days, Tracy (Annabeth Gish), the girl Willie "thinks" he wants to marry, is due to arrive from Chicago, so it's time to move beyond the crossroads; for Willie, it's decision time.

Demme delivers a story that just about everyone in the audience is going to connect with on some level, because everyone's gone through (or will go through) these kinds of things at one time or another. Who hasn't experienced, if only for a moment, that sense of either wanting to stay as they are or going back to what they were, when life was better, or at least simpler. Or more fun. Working from a screenplay by Scott Rosenberg, Demme examines the relationships between this eclectic group of individuals in a way that offers some insights into human nature that will no doubt elicit some reflection on the part of the viewer. It all points up that, no matter what it may look like on the surface, underneath it all we're not so different from one another; we all share that common bond of learning life's lessons one day at a time, albeit in our own particular way, which corresponds to who we are as individuals. And Demme succeeds in telling his story with warmth and humor; by tapping into the humanity at the heart of it all.

The story may focus on Willie, but the film is a true ensemble piece, realized as it is through the sum of it's many and varied parts. It's a talented cast of actors bringing a unique bunch of characters to life that makes this film what it is, beginning with Hutton, who anchors it with his solid portrayal of Willie, a challenging role in that Willie has to be an average guy who is unique in his own right. The same can be said of Dillon's Tommy, in whom traces of Dallas Winston from "The Outsiders" can be found; Tommy is, perhaps, just Dallas a few years later.

Mira Sorvino gives a memorable performance by creating the most sympathetic character in the film, Tommy's girlfriend, Sharon. This is the girl who was never going to be prom queen, and who up until now has lacked the self-confidence necessary to create a positive environment for herself. Lauren Holly, meanwhile, succeeds with her portrayal of Darian Smalls, the absolute opposite of Sharon, a young woman who is probably too positive for her own good and who lives the life of a perpetual prom queen, an individual who-- as another character succinctly puts it-- was "Mean as a snake," back in the day. Good performances that add a balanced perspective to the film.

There are two performances here that really steal the show, however. The first being that of Michael Rapaport, who as Paul so completely and convincingly captures the very essence of an average Joe with not too much on the ball, no prospects for the future to speak of, but who is, at heart, a good guy. There's humor and pathos in his portrayal, which personifies that particular state of being the film is seeking to depict. Excellent work by Rapaport, and decidedly one of the strengths of the film.

The most memorable performance of all, however, is turned in by Natalie Portman, who at fifteen is playing the thirteen-year-old Marty, the girl mature and wise beyond her years ("I'm an old soul," as she puts it), with whom Willie forms a kind of bond as she, in her own way, helps him to sort out his feelings and find his focus. Portman's performance here-- some three years before she would forever become Padme Amidala-- exhibits that spark and charismatic screen presence that has served her so well since, in films like "Anywhere But Here," and "Where the Heart Is." She has for some time been, and continues to be, one of the finest and most promising young actors in the business.

The cast also includes Noah Emmerich (Mo), Rosie O'Donnell (Gina), Max Perlich (Kev), Uma Thurman (Andrea), Anne Bobby (Sarah) and Pruitt Taylor Vince (Stanley), all of whom help to make "Beautiful Girls" a memorable and satisfying cinematic experience. And that's the magic of the movies.

Rating:
Summary: Great ensemble cast that acutally made a good movie!
Review: The whole movie is really good. It's got a wicked soundtrack and a wicked cast that was very well acted. The characters are all very memorable and real. They speak and act like real people and you really connect with them. The gem of this movie is Natalie Portman. The insightful chats she has with the Timothy Hutton character are the best moments in the movie. She truly steals the show. I think all guys should check this movie out. It's not too sappy and all the main characters are guys so it's a fine buddy guy movie with a touch of sentiment. It's got a lot to say about how men think and how women really are.

Good night sweet girl.

Rating:
Summary: full of fun
Review: this movie is pure fun....and Natilie Portman rocks....

Rating:
Summary: just a good movie
Review: nothing in particular about this movie stands out to me, i just like it. it stays entertaining every time i watch it.

Rating:
Summary: Collectors Item
Review: This is one of those movies that you can watch again and again. I came across it by accident on satellite TV about 3 years ago. I decided to tape it and ended up watching it as well, then watched it again the next day and again a couple of days later. I was gripped from the beginning. There are lots of memorable scenes like Rosie O'Donnells' lecture in the convenience store, and Natalie Portmans' discussions with Timothy Hutton about Shakespeare.

Just watch it and you'll know what I mean.

All the characters were fascinating including Richard Bright who played Willy's (Tim Hutton) father, and David Arquette who played his brother.

This is one of 5 films that I have permanently on video. The others being Godfather I,II,III, and Goodfellas.

Enough said?

Rating:
Summary: A real gem.....
Review: I can't say that i have seen another Ted Demme film, but when i was watching the Bafta's and they played the old 'film people who've died this year' bit, and Ted Demme's name came up, i almost choked.

I'm sad that he'll no longer be making films... but i'm glad, and eternally greatful that he was on this earth long enough to make this film. I discovered it by chance and would hope that everyone could share this blessing as it is always the best circumstance in which to see a film. No preconceptions.

I'm presuming that you've seen this film and that is why you're reading this. If you haven't, forget everything you've read. Forget about the film.... then in a year or two, go rent it out, whilst pulling a sicky, and watch it.

Then watch it again.

Rest in Peace Ted Demme. Thanks for making me laugh.

Rating:
Summary: Could have been 4 hours long
Review: I rented this DVD not knowing what to expect, and it turned out to be one of the best movies I've seen in a while. It is an excellent character piece, with some standout performances. The greatest compliment that I can give this film is that I did not want it to end. The film does a great job of giving you insight into the characters lives, and making you genuinely interested in them. They could have continued to follow these characters for several hours, and I don't feel like I would have ever lost interest. Natalie Portman, playing the particularly well-written underage love interest, turns in a brilliant performance. I could certainly see how some people could dislike this film, but anyone with a sensibility and fair understanding of the human condition will enjoy this movie.

Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece of Movie-Making
Review: "Beautiful Girls" is a movie that might have escaped your eyes, and unfortunately, that's a shame. For those of you who haven't seen it, you're missing one of the best films ever to be released in the 1990s, and with an ensemble -- yet not mega -- cast, the basic plot is rendered beautifully.

Revolving around a bunch of twentysomething friends awaiting their 10-year high school reunion, Beautiful Girls never makes us feel pity. Taking place in a small New England town during the winter, the characters never offer apologies for sticking around their bleak city streets. To them, it doesn't matter that they're plowing snow, cutting hair, or tending bar. The fact remains that the town is their home, and only Willy, Tim Hutton's character, is the "outsider" now. He's a piano-player who has returned from his big-city "life" to attend the reunion with his old pals.

But it's the title of the movie that gives it its life. When Uma Therman comes walking into the picture, everything changes. You see, each man has a "beautiful girl" in his life that affects him. For Matt Dillon's "Birdie," it's Mira Sirvino (Sharon, girlfriend) AND the delicious (but married) former high school girlfriend Lauren Holly (Darien). For Michael Rapaport (Paul), Martha Plimpton (Jan) is his main squeeze, but he's enamored with supermodels, as evidenced by his collection of centerfolds on his wall and his dog, "Elle MacPherson." To him, beautiful girls not only represent life -- they give it. In Mo's case (Noah Emmerich), he's the married one, dedicated to his wife and kids. As for Kev (Max Perlich), well, he's got his own issues. But Willie presents the most entertaining dialogue with his "girls." He's got his steady lawyer girlfriend Tracy (Annabeth Gish) coming into town, much to the dismay of the next-door neighbor, Marty, played with unabashed gusto by the beautiful Natalie Portman. Marty's age difference presents the real challenge to Willie, but the relationship is almost adult. Their dialogue is perhaps the best thing about the movie, and the viewer will actually come to realize why Willie is so infatuated with this 13-year-old "beautiful girl." Portman's character has a way of connecting with the male audience that needs to be seen.

But Uma Therman's Andera is actually the girl that comes and makes sense of each man's life. A big-city advertising exec, Andera can drink whiskey with the best of 'em, turn on the charm, and offer up wisdom and a helping hand to each of the guys. Her presence awakens the realization of every man in the movie that the best thing about their beautiful girls is the simple things. Although she seems to be "the perfect girl," she makes the guys come to realize that other men see their women in exactly the same light. She represents all the things that the men simply can't see in their beautiful girls. If they look more closely, it's all there.

Rosie O'Donnell makes a wonderful appearance in the movie as well, but Natalie Portman's Marty is the real reason to watch this one. She is simply sensational.

A great story with witty one-liners and some stuff that can make you shed a tear, "Beautiful Girls" won't easily be forgotten.

Rating:
Summary: My Favorite Film of All Time Though I Can't Figure Out Why.
Review: I'm pleasantly surprised to see that this film has such good Amazon reviews. Even though it's a beautifully done, charming film, my friends insist on scoffing at me when I mention it as my favorite of ALL TIME!! My hunch is that it's a film that must be watched for it's subtleties.

In print, the plot is average. It's the tale of some average guys (and a couple of beautiful girls) who get together in a small New England town to attend their ten year high school reunion. Of course this would be completely drab if not for the loveable characters and unbelievable chemistry of the cast. In fact, the most intriguing sub-plot (the May-December crush between Willie and Marty) would've been an on screen disaster had not the chemistry between Timothy Hutton and Natalie Portman been so on.

And as for subtleties, I've watched this film an estimated 25 times and always pick up something new; a line, joke or other character dynamic that went past me before jumps out and I guess that's why I've watched it so much.

The only warning I have is this. This movie is billed as a comedy. In reality, you might be choking back more tears than laughter. Although there are some good comedic moments, as a from-the-gut drama, this movie sparkles!