Riding in Cars with Boys (2001)

Based on the best-selling 1992 memoir of Beverly Donofrio, "Riding in Cars with Boys" (2001) stars Drew Barrymore as 15 year-old Beverly who gets knocked-up in 1965 and marries the likable loser father (Steve Zahn). Can she turn a bad situation around to the good in the years to come? There are too many slow stretches in this amiable drama and it's a bit too long, but it won me over from numerous angles: Drew's charisma, James Wood as her cop father, Lorraine Bracco as the mother, Brittany Murphy as her best friend, the quality New Jersey/New York locations (note the ending), the realistic struggle of living with an alcoholic/addict, the heaviness of the proceedings lightened up by sporadic humor and the focus on perseverance with a good attitude to turn a negative situation around to the positive.Sara Gilbert plays a peripheral character, a friend of Beverly's, revealing that she's actually attractive in a roundish (not fat) way. Adam Garcia is notable as Beverly's adult son.The film runs 132 minutes.GRADE: B-

Riding in Cars With Boys does an amazing job at avoiding hazards, caricatures, comedic relief, and most importantly, formulas. It's an exercise in mature and honest filmmaking, and every actor and actress is blessed by the great material they've been handed.The film tells the sad but heart-warming coming of age parable, taking place in the 1960's, of a young woman named Beverly Donofrio (Barrymore) who becomes a mother at the tender age of fifteen, gets married to the loser she can barely look at by the end of the film named Ray (Zahn), and tries to stay in school to secure her life. The story is true and is taken from the autobiography of the same name.Beverly is likable, but desperate, and there are many situations she gets involved in that could label her a bad mother. Frequently in the film I imagined the characters were sitting around a poker table and Beverly was dealt the worst of the hands. She plays them, hoping to score, but inevitably, risks are taken and her luck turns sour. She is ambitious and willing to win the pot, but she can't make a whole lot of the cards she has but to play them and hopefully upgrade them for some bigger ones.Her parents are played extraordinarily by James Woods, giving a performance just as good as he did as the pimp Lester Diamond in Casino, and Lorraine Bracco who does her best to pursue and cope with her daughter's hefty decisions.Beverly and Ray are with each other because they have to be. Are they in love? No, it's more of a mutual liking between them. They don't hate each other, although shadows of extreme disgust and dislike begin to show further in the story. They're with each other because if not, she'd be a tramp and he'd be a deadbeat scumbag. This depicts the time in the world where men stepped up and made attempts to father the child they mistakingly brought into the world. And the women turn to her books and schoolwork as much as she could if impregnated at a young age. Now, when a woman is pregnant, before she calls her boyfriend, she tries to secure a deal with MTV.The supporting work doesn't just stem from Woods and Bracco. It's everywhere. Brittany Murphy gives one of the best performances of her career as Fay, Bev's best friend who also is attempting to bring up a kid in this world. She is raising a girl named Amelia, while Bev is bringing up a boy named Jason. The young, vibrant romance between the two youths is woefully under-developed and that is one thing the film should've been dripping with.Steve Zahn is captivating as well. He's an actor that can play virtually anyone. A screw up brother in one of my favorite horror films, a goofball father, a drugged out loser, and an idiot backup to Jack Black and Jason Biggs.One other minor complaint is the fact that at some points the film feels more considered with reenacting the nostalgia of the sixties than actually developing the story or advancing it. Sure, the beautiful set pieces and photography compliment the script, but the overall pictorial aspect could've been ignored to focus more on the realism of the events. The Vietnam War is mentioned, and many other elements of the sixties, all of which are used very attentively and properly. Not gratuitously.Drew Barrymore is simply convincing and enigmatic as Beverly. She puts herself in the role of this desperate woman who frequently feels as if she needs to father her son and her husband. Her performance reminds me greatly of Natalie Portman's in Where the Heart Is. There's a depressing work of art, but both performances are so enigmatic and delightful that they shine a ray of sun on a plot so grim at some points. Barrymore portrays the struggles of a woman of the time period in a way that is very difficult to accomplish. She nails it with stunning honesty and piercing accuracy in her emotional struggles.And that's the keyword here; honesty. This film is genuine, and not sugarcoated. Life can seriously suck sometimes. The film makes no attempt to hide that. The things Riding in Cars With Boys is astounding and nonetheless memorable. It's a tender film with so much to show other than being a great coming of age drama. With the way it's filmed, acted, and written I'm shocked none of the credits read "Rob Reiner." Starring: Drew Barrymore, Brittany Murphy, Adam Garcia, Steve Zahn, James Woods, and Lorraine Bracco. Directed by: Penny Marshall.

This movie saved my life from getting pregnant. I saw this movie when I was 12 years old and at that age I wanted a son in the WORST way, after seeing this movie I saw how a teen pregnancy can ruin your life so 10 years later I am still stay abstinent. It was a great movie it showed the struggles of raising a baby at a young age and every young girl who's thinking about becoming a young mom should see this so they think twice before getting pregnant. It is a great movie and Drew Barrymore does a great job at playing Beverly. I cried at the end knowing how having a baby ruined her life. So if you're able to buy or rent this movie, you should. Very lovely movie and if every young girl watched this movie the teen pregnancy rates would go down drastically.

"Riding in Cars with Boys" illustrates the challenges unplanned teenage pregnancies pose. "Laverne & Shirley" comedian Penny Marshall, whose credits include "A League of Their Own" and "Awakenings," pulls no punches in this sappy but unglamorous big-screen adaptation of real-life protagonist Beverly Donofrio's autobiography. Told largely in flashbacks, this cautionary yarn paints a bleak but rewarding picture about Donofrio's struggle raising a son with an undependable dad. When she learns about her husband's addiction to heroin, Donofrio kicks him out and raises her son alone. Not only does she take menial low-paying jobs, but also she sacrifices her dreams about college. Hollywood hellion Drew Barrymore of "Charlie's Angels" fame knows something about life's hard knocks from her highly publicized substance abuse problems, so she makes a believable single mom. Clocking in at well over two hours, "Riding in Cars with Boys" blends comedy with tragedy and features a first-rate cast including Rosie Perez, Brittany Murphy, and "Sopranos" star Lorraine Bracco. Indeed, this down-to-earth, realistic tearjerker should serve as required viewing for lusty high schoolers whose obsession with sex fails to factor in small town New England the consequences when a booty call backfires.Drew Barrymore plays the disaster-prone oldest daughter of strait-laced police chief Leo Donofrio (James Woods of "Once Upon a Time in America") growing up in small town New England in the turbulent 1960s. Young Beverly displays a knack for writing poetry. After school one evening, best friend Fay (Brittany Murphy of "Don't Say A Word") and she crash a "Can't Hardly Wait" house party. Starry-eyed Beverly reads a poem she penned for an egotistical football athlete she has a crush on. Callously, the stereotypical letter-jacket jock lambastes her literary efforts. A grief-stricken Beverly locks herself in an upstairs bathroom, only to find herself confined with lovable low-life Raymond Hasek (Steve Zahn of "Joyride"). Eventually, not only do they hit it off as friends, but also they become lovers. Ray gets fifteen-year old Beverly pregnant, and a shotgun marriage follows. Well-meaning but infantile, Ray isn't fit for fatherhood. Foolishly, he gets hooked on heroin, and Beverly divorces him. Our sympathetic heroine doesn't fare much better as a single mom. She blames all her failures on her son. As Jason gets older, he takes care of her. Beverly and Jason (Adam Garcia of "Coyote Ugly") are driving out-of-town to visit Ray, who has since remarried, when the film opens with a flashback. Although Beverly has written a memoir about her misadventures, her publisher wants her to obtain a signed release from Ray before the book can be printed.Marshall and writer Morgan Upton Ward refuse to sugarcoat this ambitious but downbeat PG-13 saga about the perils of teen parenthood. The wedding scene when Beverly's embarrassed father thanks his friends for showing up is a classic bittersweet moment. Although the pace becomes sluggish and uneven, with characters drifting in and out of the story, the message about unplanned pregnancies loses none of its impact. Altogether, "Riding in Cars with Boys" qualifies as a must-see movie for parents, teenagers, and high school guidance counselors.