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Beautiful Girls Review

Other Critics provided by Metacritic.com

Critics scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 4.0
    64

    out of 100

    Metascore®
    Generally favorable reviews
    based on a weighted average of all
    critic review scores.

  • 50

    out of 100

    Los Angeles Times

    Beautiful Girls follows the boys as they work their way through these crises, and it's about as much fun as a neighborhood bar on a Tuesday night. Its crisis: not much happening.

    Read Full Review

  • 50

    out of 100

    Variety Todd McCarthy

    A great title in search of a movie to live up to it, this startlingly uneventful compendium of thick-headed boy-talk and female tolerance squanders a fine cast on incredibly ordinary characters and situations.

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  • 50

    out of 100

    ReelViews James Berardinelli

    Despite its name, Beautiful Girls is actually about a group of irritating, twenty-something males whose adolescent attitudes have remained with them well into adulthood.

    Read Full Review

  • 58

    out of 100

    Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

    Directed, with overfondness for the goofy ways of guys, by Ted Demme and written, with overfondness for the sound of guys pontificating about nothing, by Scott Rosenberg.

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  • 70

    out of 100

    The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

    Has warmth and good cheer. The film is loosely focused, but its ensemble cast is as affable as anything on television these days.

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  • 75

    out of 100

    USA Today Mike Clark

    Easy to tumble for. [9 February 1996, p.D4]

  • 88

    out of 100

    Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

    The movie was directed by Ted Demme, with a light touch that allows the humor to survive in spite of the gloomy thoughts and the bleak, dark, frozen winter landscape.

    Read Full Review

  • See all Beautiful Girls reviews at Metacritic.com

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For Families provided by Common Sense Media

Iffy for 15+

Talky '90s romance; kids may be "just not into" it.

What Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this ensemble comedy-drama about occasionally loutish guys and the girls who love them (or don't) has an abundance of swearing and sexually-oriented banter, including marital infidelity. No actual sex happens, however; just lots of talk about it and quick rifling through pages of a porno magazine. The female characters can trash-talk as strongly as the men at times. The loose plotline isn't the strongest grabber for young attention spans, despite a gallery of recognizable mainstream Hollywood stars in the cast.

  • Families can talk about the characters and the choices they make. Ask kids of dating age if they relate to any of the attitudes here. Since the (faint) structure of the plot is provided by a ten-year high-school reunion and the soul-searching it brings, you could discuss with teenage viewers the choices they are making now, and how they might affect them in 10 years.

The good stuff
  • message true0

    Messages: Most, if not all, of the heroes eventually make mature decisions, including forgiving ex-lovers for rejecting them and breaking off an affair with a married woman. Still, their actions include physical threats against other posses of guys, acting spitefully toward old girlfriends, and indulging in lots and lots of drinking. One briefly considers an affair with a (willing) adolescent girl, with the qualifier that the two of them would wait until she becomes of legal age.

What to watch for
  • violence false3

    Violence: Fighting in a bar brawl, ending with one character beaten so badly he needs hospitalization.

  • sex false3

    Sex: One of the characters shown in a bra. Nudity glimpsed only semi-indistinctly in pinup posters and girlie magazines. No sex shown, but lots of talk, including a 13-year-old girl who deliberately shocks by speaking favorably about "male contraception." One wife is having an adulterous affair. One character utters an explicit monologue about the differences in bodies between "real" woman and idealized/airbrushed "models." Jokey references to masturbation.

  • language false5

    Language: Pretty much the whole spectrum of profanity is heard.

  • consumerism false3

    Consumerism: Food-product labels, liquor brands, references to MTV, works of literature, and a strange male fetish for Neil Diamond and the vintage TV miniseries "Rich Man/Poor Man."

  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3

    Drinking, drugs and smoking: Much social and private alcohol drinking, including inebriation, and some cigarette smoking.

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© Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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