In Beautiful Girls, Timothy Hutton journeys from Chicago to Somewheresville, USA (don't bother telling us) and reencounters his high school buddies Matt Dillon (with Mira Sorvino but having affair with married Lauren Holly), Noah Emmerich (married to Anne Bobby), Michael Rapaport (a jerk who's been rejected by Martha Plimpton) and Max Perlich. After over an hour his GF Annabeth Gish finally turns up, but by this point Hutton has become somewhat besotted with thirteen year old Natalie Portman, who's literally the girl next door, and who steals the film. The final moment where he kisses her goodbye looked improvised as her response is so delightful - it's the highlight of the film. Mainly, screenwriter Scott Rosenberg isn't shining a very nice light on the male sex, and probably quite rightly.
Rosie O'Donnell has a scene stealing moment talking about faked models ruining men's perceptions of women. With Uma Thurman, Pruitt Taylor Vince, David Arquette, John Carroll Lynch.
Photographed by Adam Kimmel.
Mira Sorvino and Michael Rapaport had appeared together in the previous year's Mighty Aphrodite. Demme was Jonathan's nephew, died of a drugs overdose in 2002 aged 38, also directed Blow (2001), documentary A Decade Under the Influence (2003).
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| Somewheresville. Milwaukee? No - Stillwater, Minnesota. |
Cut back to - Two years earlier. Portman's debut is a love story between a twelve year old and an assassin, subject matter which must have raised a few eyebrows in certain parts of the USA. It's wonderfully amoral, and the Portman - Reno relationship is beautifully etched - the screenwriter is Besson.
Gary Oldman is the baddie and Danny Aiello Reno's father-figure (who betrays him).
What would have been termed a Tragedy in the old days really deserved a ten-years-later sequel.
Music by Eric Serra, with a great ostinato recurrent theme.
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