"Riding in Cars With Boys" is hardly out of the driveway before director Penny Marshall loses control. The vehicle sputters along as if somebody'd put sugar in its tank and finally stalls out in the middle of one of heroine Drew Barrymore's many crying jags.
The movie may be based on Beverly Donofrio's memoir of the '60s, but it misses the honesty and grit of the source. Marshall, who cut her teeth performing on TV's "Laverne & Shirley," tends to milk the tender, most telling scenes for laughter. And during the lulls between those laughs, she tries to yank our heartstrings by having the bubbly Barrymore begin to blubber yet again.
Steve Zahn and Drew Barrymore star in "Riding in Cars With Boys."
(Columbia Pictures)
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Although it is being marketed as "American Graffiti" for girls, the movie is a family drama with comic moments. It's centered on Beverly, a 15-year-old who puts her dreams of becoming an author on hold to care for her newborn son, Jason. The child is played by actors of varying ages over the course of the film.
The 26-year-old Barrymore ages from 15 to 35 in the role. Her clothing and makeup change, but Beverly doesn't seem to grow wiser or any more wrinkled for her travails. Perhaps the actress's biggest challenge here was to be convincing when playing the mother of the 19-year-old Jason (played by 28-year-old Adam Garcia, who is two years older than Barrymore).
At the outset, Jason is driving Beverly to a meeting with his estranged father, Ray Hasak (Steve Zahn). Beverly needs his signature on a release before she can finally publish her memoir. As they travel toward the future, they revisit "the four or five big days that change everything" in your life.
On one of those, in 1961, Beverly meets Ray at a party. He may be an 18-year-old dropout with the IQ of a gerbil, but he comes to her ego's rescue after she is rejected by one of the school's most popular boys. On the way home, the couple park, the windows steam up, and a month or so later, the rabbit dies.
Her parents (Lorraine Bracco and James Woods) insist on a wedding, a ghastly affair that ends with a honeymoon night in public housing. Beverly breaks into uncontrollable sobs after she gives birth to a boy instead of a girl. She can't be bothered to change the infant's poopy diapers, lest that interfere with her continuing quest to get her high school diploma and go on to college. Ray, an adoring father, takes up the slack, but the marriage falls apart six years later, and the brokenhearted Jason stays behind with Mommie Dearest.
Barrymore, a delightful comic actress, has the spunk for the role but can't do justice to the complexities of Beverly's conflicted personality. So she comes off as abrasive and neglectful as opposed to headstrong and ambitious, winning no empathy for this sour single mom. The actress is at her most comfortable as a boy-crazy teenager, especially playing opposite Brittany Murphy ("Don't Say a Word"), who's a joy as Beverly's steadfast friend.
Zahn walks off with the movie, bringing so much heart to the role of this feckless loser. Previously a comic specialist, the actor here plumbs the dark material with wit and subtlety. Too bad it's all wasted on this movie.
RIDING IN CARS WITH BOYS (PG-13, 122 minutes) – contains drug use and sexual content. At area theaters.
