Confused boys and the beautiful girls who still love them

What a perfectly titled movie to see the weekend before Valentine's Day: Beautiful Girls. As in, these are what girls who are beautiful look and act like, these are the Chosen Few, so take notes, you slightly overweight, slightly too loud chick who couldn't even find a platonic male friend to tag along to the theater with you (no offense, Allison, you were a great date). But I am currently not in a boyfriend-searching frame of mind, so I snuck into the theater (the showing had sold out when we got there) prepared for your simple, sweet, basic and (I'm not afraid to admit it) Gen X-type flick.

Before I delve any further (or use any more parenthetical phrases), a little caveat emptor. The advertisements for Beautiful Girls are sharply misleading in a way that is sure to strike grief in the hearts of many a sexually healthy male: Uma Thurman is not the star of this movie. Uma Thurman is only in three or so scenes of this movie, totaling about 15 minutes of screen time. So for any men who were planning to allow themselves to be dragged to this flick by girlfriends in the hopes of feasting their eyes and their imaginations on lovely Uma's angelic face and illuminating smile, you have been dutifully forewarned (and I laugh a haughty little snort in your collective faces: snort).

The unlikely star of the movie is actually Timothy Hutton (Ordinary People, French Kiss), who apparently is bucking for this year's John Travolta Award for Most Out-of-Nowhere Comeback by a Somewhat Over-The-Hill Male Actor. Hutton plays Willie, a New York City lounge pianist who returns to his New England hometown for his high-school reunion, some bonding time with old buddies, and some Reflection on Life: Should he continue with his lawyer girlfriend Tracy (Annabeth Gish) in New York, who rates a solid 7 1/2 out of 10 on face, body and personality? Should he give up the piano and sell office supplies instead? Could screenwriter Scott Rosenberg have come up with problems any more generic?

Since Rosenberg seemingly couldn't, he tries to fool the audience into believing they are watching something unique and thoughtful by packing the movie with far too many plot lines that are all far too similar to Willie's. Matt Dillon plays a snowplower who is jeopardizing his relationship with Sharon (Mira Sorvino) by fooling around with his now-married high-school crush object, Darien (Lauren Holly). Actor Michael Rapaport is Paul, another plowboy, enraged and heartbroken because his girlfriend of seven years (Martha Plimpton) is seeing a meat cutter on the side (even though she's a vegetarian). Add into this mix a few unattached snow-plowing buds, one married friend who is torn between being a family man and hanging out with the guys, and the unexpected arrival of Andera (Thurman), for whom all the males are smitten, and you've got one harmless, cute and loosely cohesive mess.

While this is obviously a chick movie, the story belongs wholly to the men-most of the female parts are not much bigger than Thurman's. But the men are all written and acted as such clueless and confused (albeit charming) specimens that we never see or understand the reasoning and emotions behind the choices they make. Slice-of-life type movies devoid of definite narrative thrust are fine and can be quite amusing and fulfilling, but it seems that Rosenberg went along writing the script and then suddenly realized that he had 120 pages and better wrap it up in the next three. The audience comes away from Beautiful Girls in upbeat fashion, but mainly because a rousing rendition of Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" plays over the closing credits. Then in the car on the way home, one realizes that the movie has provided only this to ponder: men are intrinsically befuddled, ambivalent creatures when it comes to women. They cling to the infantile belief that they will someday find the perfect girl, possessing the face and body of Cindy Crawford (hence the film's title) and the personality of... well, just that she has some personality is enough. As men grapple with this issue, the real women in their lives can do nothing but wait for them to return to Planet Earth and bitch to each other about how stupid men are.

While an impressive ensemble cast has been compiled for Beautiful Girls, complete with hip twentysomething staples and hot up-and-comers, there is sadly little for these actors to do. (After all, if the aforementioned male dilemma has nothing to do with an individual's character and personality, why should these characters have any personality?) Most of the cast plays to type with pleasant, if bland, results. Dillon breaks out his dumb-but-sensitive thing, Rapaport (Kiss of Death, Mighty Aphrodite) does his effective dumb/charming/annoying schtick, Plimpton (Running on Empty, Parenthood) is tough-yet-vulnerable a la Mary Stuart Masterson. Meanwhile Sorvino, so outrageous and brilliant in Mighty Aphrodite, and Gish (Mystic Pizza, Trinity '93) suffer through parts with less meat than the pantry at Paul and Linda McCartney's house.

Two characters supply spark to the (in)action. Rosie O'Donnell elicits cheers and applause as the town hairdresser-cum-girlfriend therapist. Her lecturing of Hutton and Dillon on their overfascination with the female body is frank, unexpected, over-the-top and flat-out hilarious, and one wishes she were featured more in her subsequent scenes. Meanwhile, young Natalie Portman, who stunned audiences last year with her role in The Professional, adds a refreshing twist as Marty, the 13-year-old who lives next door to Willie's family. Her mature honesty and winsome precociousnessDshe calls herself "an old soul," quotes Shakespeare regularly and claims that jumping in the snow gives her "a tremendous sense of self-satisfaction"Ddraws Willie to her in a quasi-sexual way that he can neither fully identify nor entirely reject. Pedophile jokes aside, it is the most intriguing and heartfelt relationship of the entire movie.

As a date flick, which this is touted to be, Beautiful Girls is perfect. It doesn't really take sides politically with the men or the women, so you can avoid heated gender-based discussions in the car afterwards. There are no sex scenes, just a couple of well-placed shots of Playboy magazine, hence sidetracking any first-date squeamishness. You're left with a mildly sweet aftertaste, the perfect jumping-off point for post-movie activities. And since you'll be more concerned with the visibility of that zit on your chin or the location of your elbow on the armrest as it relates to that of your date's, you'll be far too occupied to notice the film's pitfalls. Luckily, the film can also work for those of us who go stag, if you're willing to buy into the idea that relationship success has nothing to do with effort, chemistry, or experience. Lastly, Beautiful Girls is equally suitable for the just-been-dumped or the eternally bitter. For those who fall into these last two categories, I highlight the following trends present in the movie: All men are stupid. They don't know a real beautiful girl like you when they see one, or when they spend seven years with one. They fall for prepubescent sweeties because they're screwed in the head and have unresolved Freudian issues. They won't realize how much they need you until they lose you. But by then, you'll be all, "Hey, mister, you ain't all that and a bag of chips." You go, girl!