Are You With Us?: Beautiful Girls
By Ryan Mazie
September 23, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
I picked up the film for its folksy plot and great big cast that covers half of the DVD cover. Beautiful Girls seemed like an easy-going option. Unfortunately, the characters seem be easy-going themselves. Set in the perpetually-snowing, working-class Anytown, USA, New Yorker Willie Conway (Timothy Hutton) makes a rare trip back for his high school reunion. Waiting for his girlfriend to come down, Willie is left to mull whether to take the next step of commitment with her as he chats with his other romantically-challenged high school buddies who are pushing 30. There is Tommy (Matt Dillon), Mr. Popular in his high school glory days, but who is now is a sad former image of himself. In a long-term relationship with the beautiful Sharon (Mira Sorvino), he is having an obvious affair with his knockout, now-married high school girlfriend Darian (Lauren Holly). Then, there is hot/bone-headed Paul, who is in a slump after his long-time vegetarian girlfriend, Jan (Martha Plimpton), dumped him for a more committed meat-cutter. Finally, there is Michael (Noah Emmerich), a married-with-children standup guy who faces some conflict as he would rather be with his buddies than his wife (Anne Bobby).
With such a long and detailed plot description, can you spot the major conflict? Neither can I. That’s the problem with Beautiful Girls. There really is no major problem a simple talk can’t fix. What we get is an overly metaphorical screenplay from Scott Rosenberg, who tries to stretch a simple tiff into a meandering 112 minutes. Rosenberg, who is responsible for the scripts of movies ranging from Con Air (an okay blow-it-up actioner) to Kangaroo Jack (I feel dirty just typing the title) to a couple of canceled ABC shows, came up with the idea of the film while writing Con Air in his snowy Boston home. Tired of writing movies with more bullets than words, he was more interested in his friends’ conflicts with growing-up than scripting how Nicolas Cage could steal 50 cars in one night and be Gone in 60 Seconds. While I don’t mind movies where the action is more internal than external, the problem here is that none of the characters act outside of their stereotypical behaviors. Nothing ever comes full circle and no real epiphanies are made. Having Dillon’s tough jock character shed a tear really isn’t breaking the mold.
Driven by extended conversations, a feature I am sad to say rarely exists in mainstream Hollywood any more, nothing really new is brought to the table in either topic or delivery. One of the highlights is Rosie O’Donnell as a fast-talking, tell-it-like-it-is dame who spouts pearls of wisdom. Her hilarious walking while talking monologue halfway through the film about how the women in Penthouse and Playboy aren’t real women at all to the boys is one of the film's few signs of life. Again, her character is stuck with her never changing views of the world and is only utilized as a connecting device between the boys and the girls of the film.
What saves the film from being a total bore is the acting. Dillon, an actor who I rarely find appealing, playing the same morally-troubled character again and again, plays a, well… another morally-troubled character. However, here Dillon gives some heart in his performance and his camaraderie with his high school pals shows through, opening up another side of Dillon that is not completely made of stone. Matt went on to not be a very prolific actor, showing up here and there in films ranging from There’s Something About Mary to Crash (one of my all-time favorites) to Takers. Sorvino nicely connects with Damon as the girlfriend who is too afraid of the future if she ends the road-to-nowhere relationship with him. Problem is that it is hard to see what was there in the first place for them to have been dating for so long. Sorvino won an Oscar the year this film was released for Mighty Aphrodite. The next year, she went on to star in TV staple (and my guilty-pleasure that you should get now if you haven’t seen it) Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion. Unfortunately, it was all downhill and straight-to-DVD from there (quite possibly the quickest turnaround for an Oscar winner ever). Her most notable appearance of recent was a House M.D. episode in 2008.
Hutton is a nice leading man against Dillon – the two characters the film follows most. Hutton emotes intelligently and seems, again, as if there is a genuine friendship amongst the characters. Hutton, an actor who I have seen in dozens of movie credits, but never really remembered, maneuvers through the clunky dialogue to add some meaning to the plot. This is shown best in a near To Catch a Predator moment when he starts falling in love with the girl next door - who is thirteen. Played by Natalie Portman in her fourth film role, showing promise even back then, the character is named Marty and acts almost triple her age – witty and wise. The odd attraction is played sweetly by the two talented actors. Portman exploded a few years later when she landed the role of Padme in the new Star Wars prequel trilogy. She has stayed on the Hollywood A-list and on my radar for her ability to navigate between big budget and independent productions, picking trying and different roles.
Uma Thurman shows up in a couple scenes as the blonde bombshell visiting her bartender cousin who owns the bar where the boys drink. Essentially playing the catalyst for the other characters like Marty does for Willie, Thurman’s confident party girl adds some much needed life to the film. Thurman, a favorite actress of mine who radiates on screen (who else could look good covered in blood in Kill Bill?), continues to find work, showing up on the big screen once or twice a year. This was notably one of Rosie O’Donnell’s last big screen roles before becoming a successful and gay TV personality.
Director Ted Demme (Jonathan’s nephew), does an acceptable job with pacing and his segues between the characters are natural. Catching the hometown feel and friendship between the boys with their roundabout conversation, there is unevenness between the guys’ and gals’ opinions, making the arguments very one-sided, unable to successfully represent both parts. Also, the movie could have lost couple of minutes off of its dragged-out running time. Sure there is some fun - like the impromptu barroom sing-a-long to “Sweet Caroline” - but these moments are far and few between. Directing one of my favorite holiday movies, The Ref, Demme was thought to be one of the next great directors. Unfortunately Demme died at the age of 38 due to a cocaine induced heart attack. Ironically enough, his second-to-last movie from the year before was the Johnny Depp/Penelope Cruz true crime biopic Blow, based on George Jung, the man who established the American cocaine market in the ‘70s.
When released, critics gave Beautiful Girls good reviews. It averages 78% on Rotten Tomatoes, but there is a sharp decline to 64% when looking at Top Critics. Like me, critics enjoyed the connection between the scene-stealing Hutton and Portman. Others commented on the film’s grounded approach. Well, maybe the world was different in 1996, but none of these characters seem real to me. Almost every dialogue exchange was there to serve the plot, but without any depth. Each scene relies on coincidence and nothing is ever surprising. A movie needs some scenes of sustenance to make you care about a career and learn about their true motives. Movies that are all plot are pretty boring since there is no one to connect with. Of course, there have been countless films that are worse (The Last Kiss, Valentine’s Day), but there have also been countless films on the same level (He’s Just Not That Into You, The Family Stone) and countless films that are better (Love Actually). With that, and for its repetitive ways, Beautiful Girls is Not With Us.
Beautiful Girls was set as a Valentine’s Day pic on the weekend of February 9, 1996. Released by Miramax in 752 theaters (low overall, but high for the indie release company), it opened in seventh with $2.8 million. Falling out of the top ten the subsequent week, it wound up with $10.6 million ($19 million adjusted) as it quickly vanished from theaters. However, when compared to the unpopular-at-the-box-office genre of meandering almost-adults finding themselves, it fared decently.
Fourteen years later, Beautiful Girls has fallen into film obscurity. The only DVD release of the film is still its barebones initial debut on the format back in April of 1999. Scott Rosenberg, who based many of the characters on people he knew in real life, did an odd spinoff of the movie in the form the TV show October Road. The show is about an author who returns home to face the people his book is based upon. Picked up by ABC, the show was quickly cancelled after a mere 19 episodes.
I admire the movie’s attempt at making what could have been an interesting point about relationships and stereotypes, but no one seemed up to the challenge of executing. All that we get instead is seeing a group of friends drinking. Meager conflicts without depth do not make up a movie and the lackadaisical characters drifting through life do not help. We got a conclusion, but the film ends too quickly to see if there is an actual change in the characters or if they will fall back into their same old routines. Thurman and Sorvino sure might be Beautiful Girls, but here like everyone else, they are just static.
Verdict: Not With Us
5 out of 10