Beautiful Girls

Channel surfing on a snowy day last winter, stumbled on this movie with an intriguing name: 'Beautiful Girls.' Found a terrific movie I had somehow missed when it came out. An incredible cast, great characters, sweet, funny, engaging, and good music to boot. I recently saved it on Tivo, and one of its many charms is that like a book you love, you can pick it up at any spot in the story and be engaged for 5-10-30 minutes or an hour, put it down, and pick it up again.

I keep telling my friends to rent it, but I think they are put off by the title –they expect some movie with Mira Sorvino, Uma Thurman, Natalie Portman, Lauren Holly, and Annabeth Gish to be something this movie isn't – an exploitative movie about 'beautiful girls' – when it is in fact a charming movie about how people move through life yet retain a sense of who they are if they can remember where they came from.

This movie, made up of a dozen or so rising young stars (at the time anyway) is truly a classic. Lots of witty comedy, little bit of love, some twisted moments, everything you'd want out of a movie. It's neither a guy or a chick flick...kind of a mixture of both. Timothy Hutton was absolutely brilliant. Rosie O'Donell, though I despise her at times, has a brilliant feminist scene in which she puts Hutton and Dillon in their place. Uma Thurman, though a fairly limited role in the movie, is a stunning character, and her role ties the movie completely together, bridging the gap between the feminists and the vulgar men in the movie. A young Natalie Portman gets her career off to a great start as a very cute, very sophisticated 13 year old, who's witty charm is the icing on the cake. This movie is clearly in my top 10 all time...and is a must see!

(Maybe you should read this after watching the movie. I don't know if reading it before will spoil it for you--I doubt it, in fact, but you never know.)

Being the typical unmarried man, I rented "Beautiful Girls" because of its attractive title. I had no idea it could be so moving or endearing. I may be just getting soft, but it was one of the few films I have thought about for more than 72 hours after I saw it.

Aside from all the sexual content, swearing, etc., the dialogue between Marty (the now beautiful Natalie Portman) and Willie (my favorite actor, Timothy Hutton) is nothing short of astounding. Willie is enchanted and attracted to this little 13-year old girl next door. As they exchange more and more conversation, he realizes her great potential and even dreams about how he might just be able to wait ten years and maybe marry her.

The scene in which Willie discusses his feelings with Mo, his married friend was the turning point of the story. Willie realizes that, even if she had a love-at-first-sight crush on him, she would drift away as she matures; she would find someone closer to her own age, and Willie would become just some silly old man she met when she was young and had a ridiculous, immature attraction to. He realizes that by just being her friend, he will be able to keep her in a much more real way than if he tries to wait for her to be his lover.

But the one scene I will remember forever, the most perfect scene in the entire movie, in which the dialogue seemed neither forced nor over-elongated, was the scene in the ice-skating rink with Marty and Willie. Marty tells Willie all the things he would have liked to hear before his talk with Mo. She would marry him after they waited five years, etc. The association Willie makes with Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robins is so beautiful it almost made me cry. (Not really, but you get the point). He gives her a good taste of reality, and she seems mature enough to understand.

In a later scene, Willie tells Marty that he would like to continue being a friend, even a mentor to her, and he has total confidence that whatever she does will be amazing.

There are about three other stories intertwined into the movie, but the Portman-Hutton line stands out as the superior.

Overall, a wonderful movie to which they should have given a title that would attract people with the ability to be moved.

P.S. The funniest part of the entire movie is the confused look Willie and Paul exchange after Mo gives unusually-phrased threats to Steven, who beat up their friend. You have to have seen the movie to understand

Piano player Willie Conway (Timothy Hutton) comes back to his old home town for a class reunion.There he meets his old high school buddies and

becomes interested in the neighbor called Marty (Natalie Portman), who's 13 years old.Beautiful Girls (1996) is a great movie from the late Ted Demme.It has a fantastic cast.Hutton is brilliant and there are also Matt Dillon, Noah Emmerich, Annabeth Gish, Lauren Holly, Rosie O'Donnell, Max Perlich, Uma Thurman, Mira Sorvino, Michael Rapaport, David Arquette and so on who all do great job in the movie.But I think it's Natalie Portman who almost steals the show.Every scene with her is pure gold.She has done a lot even though she's still young.She's been in Star Wars prequels, in Leon and I heard there might a sequel coming to that movie.So we will hear from her.The characters in this movie are really unique.They are people you care about.The dialog is wonderful and everything just works in this drama.Beautiful Girls is a movie for everybody who likes a good movie.

Having gone to my local video shop, wanting to rent either Gladiator or a big-budget blockbuster type film for my 'Girls Night In', I came across this in the Bargain Bin for only £2.99(about $5). I figured either the tape was run down (with it being ex-rental) or the film was crap and nobody ever rented it. However, the prospect of Matt Dillion and Timothy Hutton in the same film made me buy it (although my girlfriends were discouraged!)

So after a marathon evening of Gladiator followed by Being John Malkovich, I popped this in the Video and was enthralled! The acting was great and the story relevant to real-life. Everybody goes through these problems, after all. The chemistry between Willie (Timothy Hutton) and Marty (the wonderful Natalie Portman) was brilliant - even though the subject is considered taboo.

Matt Dillion's little triangle with Mira Sorvino and Lauren Holly is an entertaining sideline and Michael Rapaport provides the comic relief as we watch his crumbling relationship with Martha Plimpton. Rosie O'Donnell is also hilarious as the down-to-earth ready-to-break-your-balls-if-you-step-out-of-line type who is happy to rip the rose coloured glasses from your face whenever she feels its necessary.

There is a real sense of friendship between this all-star cast and that really the defining factor in this film. However, the real stars are Hutton and Portman who are simply brilliant. She has perfected the little vixen role in Leon (aka The Professional) and although the characters of Mathilda and Marty are completely different, there is that little inkling of a girl wanting to be loved by a man in her performance. Hutton handles his role with care - and his Winnie-The-Pooh speech is simply heartbreaking!