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Critics Consensus: A warm, thoughtful dramedy about male insecurity, Beautiful Girls is buoyed by an excellent cast - particularly Natalie Portman in a stunning early role.
Critic Consensus: A warm, thoughtful dramedy about male insecurity, Beautiful Girls is buoyed by an excellent cast - particularly Natalie Portman in a stunning early role.
All Critics (47) | Top Critics (15) | Fresh (37) | Rotten (10) | DVD (3)
Beautiful Girls is always in touch with reality but never drowned in it.
This startlingly uneventful compendium of thick-headed boy-talk and female tolerance squanders a fine cast on incredibly ordinary characters and situations.
Women may be unimpressed, but men will squirm with recognition.
It's the women who break the monotony of this dudes-in-flux saga...
In a relationship that skirts bad taste, Hutton and Portman make tender movie magic, giving this big-screen spin on Friends its only moments of true romantic yearning.
The dialogue isn't the only problem with Beautiful Girls. The characters are bad, too.
Does "Beautiful Girls" philosophically aspire to much more than mirroring a Counting Crows lyric from "Mr. Jones?" Maybe not. But there's a barroom eloquence, bottle-bottomed anxiety and stumblebum sadness to it that lingers in its bones.
This 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.
Natalie Portman, as a 13-year-old on whom Hutton develops a strangely affecting crush, is a delight.
Demme's conversational film is about the gaping chasm between what men say and what they feel. It may not tell us anything new, but its eloquence is quietly rewarding.
Natalie Portman steals all the scenes with Timothy Hutton and lights up the movie...
Ted Demme's coming of age tale is about guys in their 20s who refuse or are unable to mature, which might explain why the most captivating relationship is between Timothy Hutton and the 13-year-old Natalie Portman.
"Beautiful Girls is my kind of movie. It has a great cast, a smart script, and it's funny. I love Rosie O'Donnell. I think she's really funny in this. Her rambling about the perfect woman compared to a real woman was something to be watched. I thought it was really honest and funny. Many guys have these pictures on their walls and under their beds thinking that they may one day be able to have it. The thing is, women too have a picture of a perfect chisled man in mind. But this is how we differ, we know the difference between a fantasy and reallity. Michael Rapaport's character, Paul, is a perfect example of the men I described. Rosie O'Donnell says it best in her rant. The best performances for me was from O'Donnell, Hutton, and Portman. Although Huttons' character creeped me out a bit. If you've seen the movie or plan to, you will understand why. Not an amazing movie, but it was good enough for my tastes. I would watch it again. "
Super Reviewer
The first time I saw this movie, I LOVED IT. The second time, I thought it was just okay, maybe even a little below okay. Perhaps, due to the lack of subtitles on this particular disc I now own, I couldn't READ the movie while viewing it, so I noticed that a few performances didn't capture the gravitas of the screenplay. I remember loving Paul's slam poetry ode to supermodels (how "they're bottled promise...hope dancing in stiletto heels" and how that's as good as love), but something in Michael Rapaport's faux-gangsta posture and gait seems stilted, as if he wasn't completely sold on his character's near sociopathic rant of genius. I also remember loving Willie's meditation on thirteen-year-old Marty (how she will blossom into awesomeness in ten years and that he'd wait for her), but the cinematography is too staid and the effect of the moving monologue whispers pedophilia before it whispers, say...imprinting (ala Twilight werewolves). I also also remember loving Mo's raving, nonsensical battle cry, "YOU FUCK WITH ME, YOU FUCK WITH YOU! YOU GO TO THE FOUNTAIN, YOU DRINK? YOU DON'T DRINK!" but the loud audio makes it difficult to hear actual words. All in all, a damn shame cuz the coming-of-middle-age story is quite beautiful, and the young Natalie Portman as Marty is indeed precocious and magnetic.
This would qualify for my teen angst movies, except it is 20's angst. Six small-town guys are in town for a school reunion, and all are in various crossroads. Do I get married? Do I continue my affair? What about my job? The only thing wrong with the movie is that in one short weekend, they mostly figure out what they want to do with their lives. If only life was so easy.
Natalie Portman is the only person that would make a quasi-romance with a 40-year-old seem somewhat appealing.
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