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Riding in Cars With Boys | Year: 2001 Directed: - Penny Marshall Actors/Actresses: - Drew Barrymore - Steve Zahn - Brittany Murphy - Lorraine Bracco Drew Barrymore can ACT! I was so impressed with Drew Barrymore, Brittany Murphy and Lorraine Bracco that I decided I had to buy this DVD. The story is an excellent one, bad girl makes good. I have not read the book, but it's definitely on my reading list! Drew Barrymore playes Beverly D'Onofrio, a teenage girl with a flair for writing who, after a night of drunken partying, gets pregnant. Unfortunately, the father of her baby is not at all someone she ever pictured herself being with. In the course of one day, she sees all the potential she ever had--college, being a writer, living a normal teenage life, etc--evaporate when she chooses to marry Raymond to placate her distraught parents. Her parents are less than supportive and each time she makes a bad decision, she pays dearly. The story flashes back and forth between Beverly's story from the time she got pregnant and present day Beverly riding in the car with her 20 year-old son. I won't tell you where they are going, it spoils some of the movie. Inevitably, Raymond lets her and her son down and Beverly is left with making the hardest choice of all--to raise her son alone. This movie doesn't idealize single parenting, but rather shows how warped a mother-son relationship can be when the mother is but a child herself. It's at times tender, funny, and heart-breaking. A definite necessity to everyone's movie colleciton. Great Movie- Truly Terrific This wonderful movie by Director Penny Marshall asks the question: Are parents to blame for the wrong choices of their children? "Riding in Cars with Boys" involves wrong and right choices. Because the class "Mr. Popular" insults the class "live wire" consolation is given by the class "drop-out" and the "live-wire", aptly played by Drew Barrymore is "knocked up." What do you do about that in the late 1960's. You marry the class "drop out" and deal with the results usually unhappily. The results entail about 20 years of troubles, joys, disappointments, triumphs, and growing up experiences. This true story does not fail to satisfy. Barrymore is good, but so is James Woods as her caring but sometimes insensitive father (who may have saved himself a pile of troubles if he had just bought that bra she wanted for Christmas when she was 13.) It spans the live of Beverly Donofrio from age 15 to age 35. Drew Barrymore does a very good performance at all ages. I've never seen any of her other work compare to this performance. What we have here is a comedy-drama about relationships between parents and child and parent as child and child and best friends too. Touching and tender the movie is just right to bring back hilarious and not so funny memories of what it is like to and what happens to girls who go around, "Riding in Cars with Boys." and, too, what it is like and what happens to boys who go aound "Riding in Cars with... (you get the picture). A lack of emotional resonance. "Riding in Cars With Boys" is touted as a human drama about "a girl who did everything wrong but got everything right." I'm no novice when it comes to matters of child care and raising a family, but what exactly did the film's protagonist/antagonist accomplish in the course of bringing up her son that could be considered the least bit inspiring or heartwarming, two traits the movie aspires to embody? Based on the memoir of the same name written by Beverly Donofrio, it begins by introducing us to a young girl who, as seen asking her father for a push-up bra for Christmas (she's only 11 at the time), is blossoming into womanhood at an early age. Early enough, in fact, to conceive her first child at age 15, become a high school dropout to marry a loser and discover that being a wife and mother isn't all it's cracked up to be, no matter how hard she tries to pretend she's content. Drew Barrymore plays Beverly between the age ranges of 15 and mid-30's, and strives hard for success. Her husband, a drunken slob played by Steve Zahn, is more of an obstacle than a helping hand, spending his time drinking and nursing a heroin addiction, all the while ruining her aspirations of breaking free and going to college to make a better life for herself and her son, Jason. She has a best friend, Fay (Brittany Murphy), who carried a child along with Beverly, but is supported by her upper-class family, while Beverly's father, played by James Woods, has disowned her. For a while, the material seems to carry some good potential, as Beverly tries ever-so-hard to make a success out of herself. She studies for her high school diploma, makes plans for the future, and starts to get her life on track, only to find her dreams crushed in the absence of now-departed Zahn. But no sooner do we start feeling sympathetic for her than she starts doing things like drying weed for money, and dabbling with Fay in illegal substances, a decision that nearly costs her Jason's life. Throughout much of the film, she looks at raising her son as more of a job than a joy, the result being a lack of emotional resonance from her character. Her careless nature in her child's upbringing leaves one to wonder just exactly what we are supposed to be feeling for such a person who blames their child for spilling the beans about their wrongdoings, which results in further unhappiness. The film attempts to counter these irresponsible acts by incorporating a present-day story, set in 1986, as Beverly and a 20-year-old Jason travel to see his father for one last time. Here, Beverly is cold and embittered, as is Jason, who feels his life has been overshadowed by his mother's carelessness in raising him. Supposedly, this is aimed at providing these two characters a chance at reconciliation; I'll let you be the judge of whether or not such a ploy works. Barrymore, putting on all the charm and endearing smiles she can muster, succeeds in portraying a variety of emotions and moods, even if Beverly is not worth the time getting to know. Zahn makes a lasting impression as her addict husband, and Woods is a knock-out as a father crushed by a shocking revelation from his daughter. But acting alone cannot keep one from wondering why "Riding in Cars With Boys" wants us to feel pity for someone who doesn't seem to learn from her previous mistakes. Buy Riding In Cars With Boys at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  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