ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, February 24, 1996 TAG: 9602260031
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 10 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: MOVIE REVIEW
SOURCE: KATHERINE REED STAFF WRITER
If you want to know what "Beautiful Girls" is like, imagine a cross between "Diner" and "The Brothers McMullen." Then set it in a town a lot like the one in "Nobody's Fool."
In fact, if the guys in "Beautiful Girls" don't get it together, they might easily end up like Sully in "Nobody's Fool." They know it, too, and joke about embracing loserdom as they drink at their favorite bar and sing their favorite song.
But it scares the hell out of them.
"Beautiful Girls" is a thoughtful, funny four-day stop at a place most people eventually reach - the time when you can either goof up or grow up. And it's hard to decide which would be worse.
The occasion for this four-day stop is a ten-year high school reunion in Knight's Ridge, Someplace. Willie (Timothy Hutton) takes the bus back from New York City, where he's working as a piano player, and gets together with some of his friends: There are Tommy (Matt Dillon), Paul (Michael Rapaport) and Kevin (Max Perlich), who plow snow for a living. Then there are Moe (Noah Emmerich), Gina (Rosie O'Donnell) and Andira (Uma Thurman).
Willie's trying to decide whether he ought to stay with his girlfriend of almost a year, or keep striving for that elusive thing - the permanent state of being "in love."
His friends offer him various viewpoints, either by word or by example. Tommy's got a great girlfriend, Sharon (Mira Sorvino), but he's also seeing a very striking married woman named Darien (Lauren Holly).
Paul just broke up with his girlfriend Jan (Martha Plimpton), and he wants her back, but he's still living a Playboy fantasy. "We need models," he tells Willie. "They're beautiful, they're rich and they travel a lot, so you don't have to deal with them all the time."
Moe's happily married with two kids, and his life looks like a Hallmark card. The script weights its bias toward getting married and "settling down," but it wisely shies away from suggesting that any choice is perfect.
Its oddest twist is in the warm friendship that Willie strikes up with his 13-year-old neighbor Marty, played by the extraordinarily talented Natalie Portman. Marty helps Willie realize that he's hung up on his own fantasy of perfection. Somehow, through Hutton and Portman's performances, the lurid potential of their relationship barely registers. She merely represents something important to Willie at this point in his life.
There's not a weak performance in the movie, and the cast manages to overcome some pretty improbable dialogue. O'Donnell, as usual, is hilarious; Sorvino and Thurman are exquisite. Michael Rapaport is emerging as one of the best young actors around.
"Beautiful Girls" may draw half its audience through the Uma factor, and that's OK. But its beauty is far more than skin deep.
Beautiful Girls
*** 1/2
A Miramax release showing at the Grandin Theatre. 113 min. Rated R for nudity and foul language.
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: "Beautiful Girls'" Uma Thurman. color.by CNB