Review of Riding in Cars with Boys (2001) by Jordan W — 06 Jan 2010

I had seen bits and pieces of Penny Marshall?s Riding in Cars With Boys back when it was first played on TV, and I never gave it much thought, nor did I have much desire to track it down and watch it in it?s entirety. Having now taken the time to sit down and watch it, I can safely say that it is much more than I anticipated it to be.

Beverly Donofrio (Drew Barrymore) is a teenage girl who gets pregnant and experiences the consequences of her actions for the rest of her life. The father, Ray Hasek (Steve Zahn), is an irresponsible drunk and drug addict who basically has a good heart, but can?t seem to keep his priorities in order enough to take on the responsibilities required for the life that he and Beverly enthusiastically (and prematurely) discuss having.

Beverly experiences one disaster and disappointment after another as the life she always dreamed of having shifts and disappears before her eyes. She wanted to go to college, she needed that scholarship to do so, and her parents, played by James Woods and Lorraine Bracco, are around, but don?t seem very willing to offer loving advice, just advice for the best. Worst of all, Beverly can?t help but outwardly blame her son Jason for everything that goes wrong in her life. The way she sees it, if he hadn?t been born, everything would have worked out the way she wanted to. Riding in cars with boys was her most crucial mistake in life.

I think that this is Drew Barrymore?s finest performance. She ages from her teens to her thirties, and the physical and mental strains that she goes through are deeply believable and moving. I felt her regret, her loss of hope in everything and everyone around her. When she must say goodbye to her best friend, Fay (Brittney Murphy), I felt terrible for them, but saw that it was really for the best. Barrymore and Zahn do a terrific job in this, and when he is going through drug withdrawals while she tends to both him and Jason, resting in between, I felt both contempt and sorrow for Ray. It is his condition, and there is nothing that is going to change that. Eventually, Beverly decided enough is enough.

Years later, Beverly and her adult son drive to meet with Ray after not having seen him for so long. She has written a memoir, and she needs his signature of consent in order to publish it. It is fascinating in this scene, how Zahn?s performance captures the essence of what Ray feels. He sees that his estranged son and ex -wife are standing before him, and he laughs, smiles, and treats it like any other visit. He harbors immense shame in before his family, and he blames himself and no one else. This may also be Zahn?s best performance, and this scene is one of the most poignant sequences of the movie because of the way he and Barrymore interact with each other. Ray is not the sharpest guy, but he at least realizes what he is, and takes the blame for his reckless and selfish actions.

Penny Marshall has one very moving and underrated movie here, and it has yet to leave my mind completely. It goes much farther than I though it would, and brave and tender choices are made with the material. I found this movie to much truer, and more well developed than the more recent, Juno, which also deals with teenage pregnancy, but obviously in a far more different way. It is uplifting and delightful to see the formula done away with and the cliché mostly stripped away, and for the honest and real characters to truly come alive.