By Courtney L. Woods
It’s the same old story seen in almost every other weepy drama; even if it is a true story. A young girl with a flair for writing wants to go to New York University and fufill her dreams; but she ends up pregnant and married by the age of fifteen. She ends up working hard and eventually overcoming all of her obstacles. It’s almost pure sappy melodrama that we see in the film Riding in Cars with Boys.Based on the memoir by Beverly Donofrio, the film chronicles her life from 1966 to 1986. In 1986 we see Beverly (Drew Barrymore) at thirty-five and being picked up and chauffeured by her twenty-year old son, Jason (Adam Garcia). She has written the story of her life and needs a signature from her ex-husband Ray (Steve Zahn) to be able to have it published.
Most of the film is anchored in 1986 with flashbacks into the past and narrated by the grown Jason. We see the ambitious Beverly, losing sight of her dreams, as she becomes pregnant and then ignored by her police officer father (James Woods). She doesn’t really want to marry Ray, but does it to appease her family.
Beverly has issues with the men in her life. Her father did everything but disown her, her husband is unreliable and later hooked on heroin, and the fact that she had a baby boy and not a baby girl is like salt in an open wound. It is almost hard to see her as a sympathetic character when she treats her son like an obligation.
At one scene in the film, Beverly confides in her best friend Fay (Brittany Murphy) that she is not sure if she really loves her son. Many times, Beverly treats her Jason as an equal and not a child. She says things to him like; “Don’t turn this into your problem” and “You’ll have the life I always dreamed of” when he wants to transfer from NYU. Now this doesn’t mean that Beverly was a bad person; it just means that she was young and extremely self-absorbed.
Jason is, by far, the only character in the film worth feeling any attachment to. He loves his mother, yet, has this sense of disdain for her and the way she handled things in the past. However, when Jason is talking about his mother, it brings to mind the conversations that Beverly had about her own parents earlier in the film. It brings to light the cyclical nature of parent-child relationships; how people as children view their parents, and when they reach adulthood, they are then viewed by their own children.
Riding in Cars with Boys is a long and depressing film that at the end has little resolution. Beverly is a strong character; but at times her actions on screen should warrant a cry of disgust from the audience. If you happen to be a Drew Barrymore fan, this is not her normal fare. She is not as loveable in this role as in films like Never Been Kissed or The Wedding Singer. Perhaps she should stick to more lighthearted, quirky roles and avoid the abysmal ones like Riding in Cars with Boys.
Cardinal Grade: C-
