Beautiful Girls

At times over fond but rightly critical of the stunted adolescence of these man-babies, Beautiful Girls still gives them too wide a berth for their ruminations on nothing in particular while ignoring the more intriguing female characters that reside on the periphery. Strange that the two most fascinating ones are a wisecracking Rosie O’Donnell and Natalie Portman doing one of her neighborhood Lolitas. (She had a few of these roles in the beginning of her career, most evidently in Leon: The Professional.) Makes you wonder about what exactly these men expect and where they’ve placed their sexual hang-ups.

Then again, one of the schlubbiest is obsessed with lingerie models, Penthouse playmates, and Playboy bunnies, so you know, I think we can guess what type of males we’re dealing with here. It’s great to watch O’Donnell hold up one of those magazines and give them a verbal lashing about the unrealistic expectations of womanhood and its performative aspects to these men. Of course, they’re too myopic to understand what she’s saying. Not to mention the entire scene feels like a screenwriter’s conceit and less like a realistic moment no matter how much gusto O’Donnell provides in dishing out this rapid-fire monologue.

Much of Beautiful Girls is like that – men stuck in their high school glory days unable to see past their navel, unsure about this whole commitment thing, and strangely overconfident about what they’re bringing to the table. Matt Dillon’s character peaked in high school and he strings along his girlfriend (Mira Sorvino, underused and deserving better much like her character) while carrying on an affair with his high school girlfriend (Lauren Holly, her part mainly consists of walking into a scene and projecting an icy bitchiness to everyone in the room). Michael Rappaport’s creepily obsessed with his ex-girlfriend (Martha Plimpton), and unable to separate his unbelievable expectations of womanhood from his addiction to pornography and scantily clad models.

The movie is really about O’Donnell’s monologue, how these men need to let go of their strange ideals and hang-ups and look at the actual people around them for love, commitment, and growth. Elle MacPherson will always be a fantasy object to them, but Mira Sorvino’s harried girlfriend has tremendous reservoirs of love to give and no one willing to take it. Frankly, these women deserve much better.

Yet when Beautiful Girls zeros in on Timothy Hutton’s character, I enjoyed it much more. He’s returned home to try and sort things out while attending his high school reunion. He made it out of the small town and engages in an odd relationship with Portman’s character. They seem to attract each other as blank slates they can project their dreams and realities upon, canvases they can project innocence or maturity that may or may not be there.

Hutton’s performance is one of the best in the film as he realizes these guys are stuck in a rut, and he doesn’t want to replicate this within his own life. He’s going to give that whole commitment thing a shot with the beautiful girl he left behind in New York. Bravo, you’ve managed to enter your thirties with the same uncertainty as the rest of us.

Leave it up to this film’s stellar ensemble to paper over the thinness of the premise and the occasionally bits of dialog that feel more “written” than “spoken.” Hey, they also managed to squeeze in a semi-drunken singalong to “Sweet Caroline,” and that’s a charming bit that feels truthful. Friend groups do get weirdly obsessed with bits of pop culture that become some kind of shared experience or shorthand with each other. Beautiful Girls is mildly enjoyable, but I’ll be happy if we can keep the films about wheel spinning white dudes to a minimum from here on out.