Review: “Beautiful Girls”

“Beautiful Girls” is kind of terrible, I think I’m not sure, I don’t want to do a hate review it is really close . Directed by the late Ted Demme, whose two best movies is “Blow” and “The Ref”.  Highlights of the film? It is 90’s, as all get out, granted it was released in 1996, so there’s that. The studio is Miramax, before all the stuff with Harvey came to light. During this time Miramax was that writer/director independent studio that turned out promising dramas & comedies here and there.

So a group of friends are having a high school reunion in the middle of winter in the town of Knights Ridge, MA. Willie (Timothy Hutton) is a jazz pianist coming home where his father is dealing with the beginnings of Alzheimer’s there is his brother Bobby (David Arquette), who isn’t annoying. Willie does rock a sweet Celtics starter jacket from back in the day and amazingly it still fits and his bedroom does have a wiff of Larry Bird worship, he is in Massachusetts after all, so there’s that. I detest the Celtics, I am a Lakers guy, still though.

Tommy “Birdman” Rowland (Matt Dillon) has his own snowplow business which is just a rusted out Dodge, Ford or maybe Chevy pick-up there is the partner Kev (Max Perlich) you’ve seen him everywhere he has that kind of face he just needed to lose the mustache. Paul Kirkwood (Michael Rappaport) is a man child afraid of commitment he won’t propose to his longtime girlfriend Jan (Martha Plimpton) he has pictures of super models plastered all over the walls of his place. I had that phase once, when I was in high school to be fair I didn’t know better, this guy is in his late 20’s oh something I didn’t do, but he does he has a Saint Bernard named Elle MacPherson.  He has an interesting philosophy when it comes to women “Supermodels are beautiful girls, Will. A beautiful girl can make you dizzy, like you’ve been drinking Jack and Coke all morning. She can make you feel high full of the single greatest commodity known to man – promise. Promise of a better day. Promise of a greater hope. Promise of a new tomorrow. This particular aura can be found in the gait of a beautiful girl. In her smile, in her soul, the way she makes every rotten little thing about life seem like it’s going to be okay. The supermodels, Willy? That’s all they are. Bottled promise. Scenes from a brand new day. Hope dancing in stiletto heels.”

Darian Smalls (Lauren Holly) is married with a couple of kids, or maybe one anyway she & one time high school crush “Birdman” they are carrying on as if she wasn’t married. Birdman is married to Sharon (Mira Sorvino) things get super awkward when Darian shows up at Birdman’s surprise party. Stanley “Stinky” Womack (Pruitt Taylor Vince) runs the local tavern who spouts to his friends “I have apps.” He means appetizers. Michael Morris (Noah Emmerich) is the manager of a textile factory, he is married and has three kids.  

Rosie O’Donnell has some killer lines and is likeable here.  One of her monologues “I’m finished speaking to both of you okay? You’re both f***ing insane. You want to know what your problem is? MTV, Playboy, and Madison f***ing Avenue. Yes. Let me explain something to you, ok? Girls with big tits have big asses. Girls with little tits have little asses. That’s the way it goes. God doesn’t fu** around; he’s a fair guy. He gave the fatties big, beautiful tits and the skinnies little tiny niddlers. It’s not my rule. If you don’t like it, call him.”   Yeah, that’s nice right? Well, it doesn’t exist ok. Look at the hair. The hair is long, it’s flowing, it’s like a river. Well, it’s a fucking weave ok? And the tits, please! I could hang my overcoat on them. Tits by design were invented to be suckled by babies. Yes, they’re purely functional. These are silicon city. And look, my favorite, the shaved pubis. Pubic hair being too unruly and all. Very key. This is a mockery, this is a sham, this is bullshit. Implants, collagen, plastic, capped teeth, the fat sucked out, the hair extended, the nose fixed, the bush shaved… These are not real women, all right? They’re beauty freaks. And they make all us normal women with our wrinkles, our puckered boobs, hi bob, and our cellulite feel somehow inadequate. Well I don’t buy it, all right? But you fucking mooks, if you think that if there’s a chance in hell that you’ll end up with one of these women, you don’t give us real women anything approaching a commitment. It’s pathetic. I don’t know what you think you’re going to do. You’re going to end up eighty-years old, drooling in some nursing home, then you’re going to decide, it’s time to settle down, get married, have kids? What, are you going to find a cheerleader? Charge it Mitch.

Tommy:” I think you’re over simplifying.”

Gina: “Oh eat me. Look at Paul. With his models on the wall, his dog named Elle McPherson. He’s insane. He’s obsessed. You’re all obsessed. If you had an once of self-esteem, of self-worth, of self-confidence, you would realize that as trite as it may sound, beauty is truly skin-deep. And you know what, if you ever did hook one of those girls, I guarantee you’d be sick of her.”

Tommy: “Yeah, I suppose I’d get sick of her after about, what, twenty or thirty years?”

Gina: “Get over yourself. Thank you Mitch. Say hello to Gertrude.”

Tommy: “What?”

Gina:”No matter how perfect the nipple, how supple the thigh, unless there is some other shit going on in the relationship, besides the physical, it’s going to get old, ok? And you guys, as a gender, have got to get a grip. Otherwise, the future of the human race is in jeopardy.”

Willie Conway: What was that?

Tommy: I don’t know, but a great ass.

Willie Conway: Nice tits. Come on let’s go.

Then there is the most troublesome part of the film is Willie’s neighbor’s daughter Marty (Natalie Portman) who is 14 at this point in time, thankfully there is no super creepy things happening between them still though, Willie finds Marti fascinating at the woman she could grow into. I will leave it there.  Paul (Rappaport) sums it up in a lot less cruder way than one time my cousin told me. Paul” I don’t care, man. If she can cut her own food, she’s fair game.” Now I’m not a father to a daughter or to a son for that matter it’s just creepy. There is a good repartee between Willie and Matry, its just that Willie is 16 years older than Marti, one of Marty’s lines “What we’ve been doing lately is smoking massive amounts of drugs, binging on Entemmann’s and listening to old Pink Floyd CD’s.”

In the end of this disaster of a flick, Darian goes to the reunion only to be confronted by Peter who reveals that Darian was flat out mean to her calling her “Mean as a snake”, which when you’re in high school well high school is a prep for real life which this generation may never learn about. Darian’s husband eventually confronts Matt Dillon in a bar with some friends beats the crap out of him and justifiably so. Oh yeah Uma Thurman is in this flick as a cousin of Stinky’s and arouse the interests of the male leads. In the end (again) of a disaster of this flick I do give credit to screenwriter Scott Rosenberg who actually is a writer for “Con-Air” “Jumanji: The Next Level” and 2000’s “Gone In 60 Seconds”.

The best part of the flick is when Willie, Kev, Paul and Michael shows up at Darians house to inflict some kind of retribution on Darian’s husband Willie T-Bone’s Darians husbands friends BMW, while they try to rescue or escalate things. The writing of this film sort of makes things watchable in this film overall it is a tough watch.