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Title: Beautiful Girls (1996)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Matt Dillon | ... | Tommy 'Birdman' Rowland | |
| Noah Emmerich | ... | Michael 'Mo' Morris | |
| Annabeth Gish | ... | Tracy Stover | |
| Lauren Holly | ... | Darian Smalls | |
| Timothy Hutton | ... | Willie Conway | |
| Rosie O'Donnell | ... | Gina Barrisano | |
| Max Perlich | ... | Kev | |
| Martha Plimpton | ... | Jan | |
| Natalie Portman | ... | Marty | |
| Michael Rapaport | ... | Paul Kirkwood | |
| Mira Sorvino | ... | Sharon Cassidy | |
| Uma Thurman | ... | Andera | |
| Pruitt Taylor Vince | ... | Stanley 'Stinky' Womack | |
| Anne Bobby | ... | Sarah Morris | |
| Richard Bright | ... | Dick Conway | |
New York based jazz pianist Willie Conway heads back to his small hometown of Knights Ridge, Massachusetts for a high school reunion. The trip is as much to go to the reunion and see his old friends - none of whom left Knights Ridge after graduation - as it is to get away from his current life, at which he is at a crossroads both personally and professionally. He is just eking out a living with his piano playing gigs, and as such he is thinking about taking a sales job. He's also not sure if he's ready to marry his long time girlfriend, lawyer Tracy Stover. Most of Willie's Knights Ridge blue collar friends' best days were in high school, they still having that "trophy" mentality of girlfriends and wives. Only Michael "Mo" Morris is happily married with a family. Paul Kirkwood, whose room is plastered with magazine pictures of models, wants his waitress ex-girlfriend Jan back only because he knows now that he can't have her. And Tommy "Birdman" Rowland, who was the big man in high ... Written by Huggo
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(Maybe you should read this after watching the movie. I don't know if reading it before will spoil it for you--I doubt it, in fact, but you never know.)
Being the typical unmarried man, I rented "Beautiful Girls" because of its attractive title. I had no idea it could be so moving or endearing. I may be just getting soft, but it was one of the few films I have thought about for more than 72 hours after I saw it.
Aside from all the sexual content, swearing, etc., the dialogue between Marty (the now beautiful Natalie Portman) and Willie (my favorite actor, Timothy Hutton) is nothing short of astounding. Willie is enchanted and attracted to this little 13-year old girl next door. As they exchange more and more conversation, he realizes her great potential and even dreams about how he might just be able to wait ten years and maybe marry her.
The scene in which Willie discusses his feelings with Mo, his married friend was the turning point of the story. Willie realizes that, even if she had a love-at-first-sight crush on him, she would drift away as she matures; she would find someone closer to her own age, and Willie would become just some silly old man she met when she was young and had a ridiculous, immature attraction to. He realizes that by just being her friend, he will be able to keep her in a much more real way than if he tries to wait for her to be his lover.
But the one scene I will remember forever, the most perfect scene in the entire movie, in which the dialogue seemed neither forced nor over-elongated, was the scene in the ice-skating rink with Marty and Willie. Marty tells Willie all the things he would have liked to hear before his talk with Mo. She would marry him after they waited five years, etc. The association Willie makes with Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robins is so beautiful it almost made me cry. (Not really, but you get the point). He gives her a good taste of reality, and she seems mature enough to understand.
In a later scene, Willie tells Marty that he would like to continue being a friend, even a mentor to her, and he has total confidence that whatever she does will be amazing.
There are about three other stories intertwined into the movie, but the Portman-Hutton line stands out as the superior.
Overall, a wonderful movie to which they should have given a title that would attract people with the ability to be moved.
P.S. The funniest part of the entire movie is the confused look Willie and Paul exchange after Mo gives unusually-phrased threats to Steven, who beat up their friend. You have to have seen the movie to understand