Boys on the Side

You know, I'm beginning to recognise a repetiton throughout these reviews of certain phrases like 'beautiful', 'wonderful' and 'perfect blend of comedy and drama'. Well, you're just going to have to put up with that some more because those phrases apply very well to Boys on the Side. It tells the tale of what happens when Jane (Whoopi Goldberg), a gay singer from New York, decides to travel west Los Angeles to kick-start her career. However her car has just been towed so she ends up sharing the trip with Robyn (Mary Louise Parker), an uptight HIV positive real-estate broker, and her friend Holly (Drew Barrymore), a wild, man-obsessed young woman who they help get away from her drug-dealing boyfriend Nick. However, complications arise when they discover that in aiding Holly's escape they ended up causing Nick's death, and Robyn becomes too ill to travel, forcing them to settle down for a while in a small town in Arizona.

Written by Don Roos, the man behind The Opposite of Sex, Boys on the Side is, for me, a perfect blend of comedy and drama (yup, there's that phrase again!) The acting (especially from the three female leads) is superb, the dialogue is natural and convincing, and both the comedy and the drama manage to be ideal examples of their kind, with the comedy never falling into heavy-handed slapstick nor the drama becoming too mawkish. What really makes this film work, however, is the seamless way it segues from one to the other, encouraging the audience along with subtlty that imitates real life. So one minute we're laughing at Robyn's misunderstood gestures to Holly as she tries to communicate across busy traffic that Nick is dead, the next we're somberly watching in a hospital as Jane waits to find out why Robyn collapsed and if she's going to be OK.

"See? Isn't this so much more worthwhile then having your insides removed just to scare an audience witless?"

"I can't believe your first film appearance was as Leatherface!" "It wasn't, it was in E. T. and I was only 4." "I was talking to Matthew."

It is also one of the best women-oriented films I have seen for a long time, and please note, I don't call it a 'chick flick', partly because I hate that phrase (its so dismissive) but mostly because Boys on the Side is more than a 'chick flick'. It isn't just a film *for* women, it's a film a*bout* women, and life, and friendship, and most importantly, it isn't centred around them living in a big city and worried about dating. It's much odder than that, and also much more real as a result - the relationships that *do* develop are perfectly natural and increadibly sweet. And the ending is too beautiful (there's the second one) and moving for words, managing to be truely life-affirming, despite its sadness. All in all, a wonderful film (and there's the third!).

(Please note, all pictures displayed here are not mine are used without permission of their owners because I'm recommending that you go out and rent/see/buy a copy of this film, thus increasing their profits. However, should they disapprove, please can they mail me and I'll remove them.)