The film really succeeds with its warm treatment of ordinary hang-ups - no life-shattering revelations or pain repressed since childhood, just the genuine, everyday trials of life.
This is the first review I write on Metacritic as I watched the movie yesterday night for the umpteenth time an just felt like giving my two cents:
Even though I should have outgrown it as it revolves mainly around characters in their late 20s, it doesn’t feel like that at all. In fact it’s my personal top five favorite movies of all time (as a frame of reference: I was born in the late 60s), and one of a few on my annual watch list -- though yesterday I just found out that it’s best enjoyed in early February!
It’s all about coming home, camaraderie, the coziness of having a place in the world and the discomfort of still looking for it.
The cast is killer, they have an unbeatable chemistry and a very young Natalie Portman is the magic sparkle – she straight outplays all her seniors.
There are quite a few tremendously great monologues that are just as quotable as from any bigger movie. And the songs chosen for the piece hits all the right notes – it actually expanded my music universe quite a bit (unfortunately, the soundtrack album doesn’t contain all the tracks in the movie, but the one that really set the mood for the movie are there).
It’s just a precious little Ted Demme gem that I always pick up at flea markets whenever I see a DVD of it in a forgotten sales bin: Do the same, give it to one of your friends, preferably male (though I can imagine that the movie also works for women ... to a certain degree).
Beautiful Girls is an excellent comedy drama with a popular cast. Uma Thurman, Matt Dillon, Natalie
Portman and Mira Sorvino are just some of the actors in the movie. The movie is a wonderful movie to
watch with your significant other, friends or family.
With beauty and talent to spare, Portman is something to behold: It's as if Elizabeth Taylor and Jodie Foster were somehow genetically melded at an early age. She's definitely a beautiful girl to watch for.
Beautiful Girls follows the boys as they work their way through these crises, and it's about as much fun as a neighborhood bar on a Tuesday night. Its crisis: not much happening.
A fantastic look at male insecurity, immaturity, and our inability to commit, Beautiful Girls is a truly sentimental film. A great look at returning home to think things out while being confronted with your past and having to learn how to move on, the film can be a little too obvious and thinks itself more profound than it really is, but that said, it is a really engaging and compelling look at life, love, and finding that "perfect" person for you. An actor's showcase, Beautiful Girls presents fantastic performances from Natalie Portman, Timothy Hutton, Matt Dillon, Noah Emmerich, Michael Rapaport, Rosie O'Donnell, and Uma Thurman. Sweetly written, the sentimental nature of the film hits all the right notes and truly fills you up with nostalgia for the way things used to be and really uses this nostalgia as a good jumping off point to dive into its psychological musings. Overall, Beautiful Girls is a pretty good film overall that really is a pleasure to watch.
OK so I cannot issue a full review as I stopped watching at 59 minutes in, had seen enough to realize my life did not need to waste a further 50 minutes watching this dated flick.
Would I recommend, maybe in 1996,..then again most likely not ever.