39. Beautiful Girls

Fargo and Jerry Maguire were two of the best films of 1996, but the one that graced the top of my best-of list that year was Ted Demme’s Beautiful Girls. At a time just before the market was tested with various stories about high-school reunions, the greatest of them all made a quick exit from theaters and an even quicker vanish when Miramax tried to relaunch the film later that year for Oscar consideration. No one was paying attention, even with a cast that included Matt Dillon, Timothy Hutton, Uma Thurman, Rosie O’Donnell, Lauren Holly, Michael Rapaport, Mira Sorvino, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Before he began polishing Jerry Bruckheimer projects, Scott Rosenberg crafted this amazing and thorough screenplay about relationships and growing old (and up) with a wisdom and uniqueness not found in your run-of-the-mill coming-of-age drama. A group of friends are gathering in working-class Massachusetts for their ten-year reunion. Many of them never left and the one who got out with dreams of piano playing returns with doubts of whether he wants his current relationship to go to the next level. Not much has changed in town. The star QB relives his glory days vicariously by sleeping with his old, now married, girlfriend while his current one wonders what it will take to make him happy. Another has lost a girl because he can’t commit and still plasters his walls with pictures of supermodels, “bottled promise” of the perfect woman.

The title of the film is not for naught as its overriding theme is the perfect fantasy we all dream of. “I just want something beautiful,” says one character and it’s represented by the two females in the film who are beyond his reach. One of them (Thurman) is the ideological perfect woman. She hangs with the guys, knows when pitchers & catchers report to camp, and is stunningly gorgeous. She’s also the kind of gal who is “born with a boyfriend” The other is the 13-year old girl next door, “an old soul” who seems to have all the answers despite being set-up for the first great crush of her young life. She is played by Natalie Portman in what may be the greatest performance by a young actress I’ve ever seen.

Performances notwithstanding (because there’s not a bad one to be found - even Rosie O’Donnell is tolerable), but the true beauty is found in Rosenberg’s wonderful text. Speeches abound on the nature of love and the superficiality of lust, but nary a scene goes by without offering a semblance of meaning, heart and dead-solid, perfectly timed laughs. It’s impossible not to be taken in by the interplay between Hutton and Portman. Their ruminations on “Winnie the Pooh” and “Romeo & Juliet” are mesmerizing and heartbreaking without sounding like an overly clever scripter at work, although any word synonymous with “smart” adequately describes Rosenberg’s screenplay.. As my colleague Nick Digilio always says, Beautiful Girls is one of the five films that are required viewing for all guys (on a list that also includes Diner, Breaking Away and Fandango.) True enough. It’s also a film that speaks to both sexes, all ages and everyone who loves films that hit you right where you need it the most. (Erik Childress)