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"One day can make your life; one day can ruin your life. All life is is four or five big days that change everything." So says Beverly Donofrio, the author of the book Riding in Cars with Boys and the subject of the movie of the same title. Grammarians won't want to think too hard about her last sentence. Moviegoers won't want to think too hard about her movie.

Beverly grew up in Wallingford Connecticut. She had a younger sister named Janet, a father who was a police officer, and homemaker for a mother. She had dreams of being a writer and going out with the star football player at high school. But those dreams vanished when a night in the backseat of a car led to a dramatic change in her life. Finding herself pregnant at the age of 15, she married the boy (who wasn't much older than her) though she barely knew him. And the two struggled to raise their young son in a difficult financial situation.

Playing her husband Ray is Steve Zahn, but Beverly's real companion is Fay (Brittany Murphy) her best friend from high school. Beverly and Fay, who also got pregnant in high school, have a friendship that transcends all of the situations they find themselves in. Young motherhood, experimenting with drugs, deadbeat husbands--all of these merely provide grist for Fay and Beverly's times together.

Drew Barrymore plays Beverly from the age of 15 to 35, which creates serious believability problems. While Drew is certainly convincing as a mother in her young 20s, she's far less so playing a gawky teenager or a woman approaching middle age. Not that many actors could've made that 20-year transition, but that excuse doesn't help the movie at all. The solution, of course, was to find different actresses for the various ages, though I imagine Barrymore found the acting challenge too promising to pass up. The film's producers should've convinced her otherwise.

On the other hand, Brittany Murphy and Steve Zahn are fantastic. Zahn's starred in small films like Saving Silverman and Happy, Texas and had smaller roles in Out of Sight and The Object of My Affection. But this is his meatiest role so far, and he nails it. He finds the right balance between likability and portraying a man who's struggling with his own demons.

Murphy, who also has a starring role in Don't Say a Word, is wonderful as an enthusiastic but misguided young woman who offers Beverly support if not always direction. Murphy has an easier time than Barrymore, since she only has to be a teenager and woman in her early 20s, but she also gives a more powerful performance. James Woods is also good as Beverly's father, though his part pretty much drops out of the picture after the first half-hour.

Along with Drew's unconvincing portrayal, the movie's most serious drawback is that it's a bio-pic. Admittedly a bio-pic of someone you've never heard of, but a bio-pic nonetheless. There's the obligatory short scene of Beverly at age 11 that turns out to be formative. Skip ahead a few years to the event "that changes everything." Skip ahead a few more years to our heroine struggling to get by. Moments of triumph, more struggle. Then skip ten years (!) to the big resolution. Trying to cover so much time in a 100-120-minute movie inevitably leads to superficiality and a host of unanswered questions.

For example, what does happen to Beverly's father? How did Beverly get by when she kicked her husband out? How does her son grow up? When does she move to New York, and where does she get the idea to write a book?

Penny Marshall, who's best known for directing Big and Awakenings, was on auto-pilot when she directed Riding in Cars. There's nothing distinctive about the movie visually, and the story moves along at a routine clip. Indeed, the only noticeable aspect of the movie is its horrible sound. Maybe there was just a problem with the print I saw, but the dubbing of the dialogue is embarrassing for a studio film. There are many occasions where the sound of people's voices doesn't match what's happening on the screen.

I suspect that Riding in Cars with Boys will be one of those movies that audiences enjoy but critics dislike. It's a sweet-natured movie with enough pseudo-laughs and -tears to make time pass by. For better or worse, it's not a movie that's going to change anyone's life. 

J. Robert Parks 10/27/2001