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10/16/08
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Riding in Cars with Boys (2001)
33
%
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Reviews Counted:30
Fresh:10
Rotten:20
Average Rating:4.5/10
Consensus: Riding in Cars With Boys suffers from mixing grit and pathos with cuteness and comedy. Ironically, many critics found Zahn's character more compelling and three-dimensional than Barrymore's.
Theatrical Release:Oct 19, 2001 Wide
Box Office: $29,601,298
Synopsis: Beverly loves boys, but she knows her limits: nothing below the waist (hers), if she doesn't know the boy. Ray, however, a sweet-natured but shiftless young man is the exception to her rule and... [More]
Starring: Drew Barrymore, Steve Zahn, James Woods, Brittany Murphy
Director: Penny Marshall
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Reviews for Riding in Cars with Boys
Top CriticClick to read the article
11/22/02
Top CriticBeverly is supposed to be a bad girl running with the wrong crowd, but most of the time she seems to be right out of a serioso episode of Laverne & Shirley.
01/22/02
Top CriticThe rough edges of Donofrio's life are either ignored or smoothed away, replaced by broad laughs and easy sentiment.
10/29/01
Top CriticA film with honesty, sincerity and a great big heart.
10/24/01
Top CriticThere's a sort of Hallmark tyranny at work.
10/19/01
Top CriticThe movie may be based on Beverly Donofrio's memoir of the '60s, but it misses the honesty and grit of the source.
10/19/01
Top CriticDespite being scrubbed almost spotless, the story still makes its mark.
10/19/01
Top CriticNeither Barrymore, who's never played a role this ambitious before, nor director Penny Marshall, who peppers the movie with sight gags and sitcom broadness, ever comes to terms with Beverly.
10/19/01
Top CriticEvery scene is coated with Marshall's thumbprints, ultimately connecting into a manhandled, mangled, misshapen whole, its themes written out in thunderously obvious cues.
10/19/01
Top CriticYou can see how hard it works from top to bottom. But it never quite gets what it wants.
10/19/01
Top CriticIt strains for bittersweetness, but a heavy directorial hand (wielding a ladle of schmaltz) tends to overwhelm both the humor and the pathos.
10/19/01
Top CriticToo much of its reality involves joyless response to circumstantial failure, and instead of being ironic or bittersweet, it's mostly bitter.
10/19/01
Top CriticWhat with a miscast star, a confused director and a cluttered script, Riding in Cars with Boys is a traffic accident of a movie.
10/19/01
Top CriticA film like this is refreshing and startling in the way it cuts loose from formula and shows us confused lives we recognize.
10/19/01
Top CriticAs a flawed but lovably lionhearted woman, Barrymore triumphantly comes of age as an actress.
10/19/01
Top CriticFor all its characters' weaknesses, it believes in their essential decency and capacity for love -- and for a good deal of the time it makes us believers, too.
10/19/01
Top CriticA funny, poignant adaptation of Beverly D'Onofrio's autobiography, and a chick flick that's refreshingly sap-free.
10/18/01
Top CriticChalks up victories for Drew Barrymore, Steve Zahn, director Penny Marshall, and almost its entire supporting cast.
10/18/01
Top CriticBuried under the miscalculations, the shamelessness, the off-putting and inappropriate broadness are sporadically visible souvenirs of a good project gone bad.
10/18/01
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