Beaches (1988)

This film is underrated. Yes it is a chick flick but I personally think the film can be appreciated by both sexes. Bette Midler plays CC Bloom and Barbara Hershey plays Hilary Whitney. Both are from very different upbringings. CC is demanding, intense but has a good heart, she is desperate for stardom and has been performing since she was young. Hilary is smart, headstrong and a lawyer. They both meet when they are on holiday in Atlantic City when they are teenagers and remain in contact through letters til adulthood. A lot happens through their friendship, but they always remain friends. In my opinion at the end of the film really shows the true extent of their friendship. Hilary has no one but CC and her daughter and CC is there for her til the end. It is a very emotional film but in a way happy because you know Hilary died knowing CC will look after her daughter and they can share memories of her forever.

OK, but not great, drama. A story that follows the lives of two women, from their meeting as 11- year olds, their resulting friendship, and then the ups and downs of their relationship, careers and personal lives. Decent enough story and reasonably emotional. However, it feels predictable and unoriginal. While emotionally manipulative, it doesn't really offer anything new on the subject of friendship.Also, thanks to Bette Midler's performance, it often veers into comedy space, and over-the-top comedy at that. While Midler is great in these scenes, it does lighten the mood too much.

Under the Boardwalk, Down by the Sea....With one of the most magical musical moments to open a film, Bette Midler immediately shows what she has in star quality after a series of fun comedies which made her one of the biggest box office queens of the late 1980's. "Beaches", like "The Rose" years before, proved she could do drama, and here she mixes in a spiky personality for great comic effect. Who else could sing a song like "Otto Titsling" and get away with it, lyrics like "Do you buy a titsling or do you buy a brazieere?", one of the most delightfully campy songs in film history. She also gets to sing the Cole Porter standard "I've Still Got My Health" (a song originated by Ethel Merman in "Panama Hattie") and of course her huge hit, "Wind Beneath My Wings", the ode to her character's friendship with the dying Barbara Hershey, a divorced wife and mother who she's known since she was little.C.C. Bloom is her name and tight red curls are her game. She goes from singing telegram girl to Broadway star all the while remaining close to sweet Hilary, the rich girl she met under the boardwalk. The film isn't about the men in their life, rather the devotion these two have to each other that undergoes many obstacles but endures in spite of everything and gives C.C. the opportunity to show what a true friend is really all about. Mayim Bialik plays the young C.C. as if she was Bette shrunken down to a tot and lead her to the lead role in T.V.'s "Blossom". Lainie Kazan makes the most of her role as Bette's overly loving mother who realizes she didn't have enough to give for the attention-starved C.C. John Heard is the man who only briefly comes between the two friends, but when you've got a friendship as deep as these two, it will take more than just a man to break that up. Keep your Kleenex handy; The conclusion is the ultimate tearjerker in the shade of "Terms of Endearment", "The Color Purple" and "Steel Magnolias".

Yes it's a chick flick, yes it's overly sappy, yes it's predictable to the very end, but so what. Bette Midler gives a great performance, there are a couple of very brilliant and fun singing numbers, and at times it is actually touching. The young girl who played Midler as a child was amazing, she had Midler spot on. I only wish that a little more time would have been spent with her on screen. She was more fun and interesting then all the characters in the whole film put together. Despite the predictability I still stayed interested, probably because the story moves at a pretty good pace, doesn't stay stuck on any one scenario. I don't feel like the opening moments were a good idea, they take any surprise or possibility of real drama away and bring nothing at all to the film. I'm not sure why the director chose to take that direction. I have heard people say this is the saddest movie they have ever seen, I'm sorry but it's far from that. Good for what it was intended to be.