At the 2002 MTV Movie Awards<\/a>, Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman, at the time the stars of the Star Wars<\/em> prequels, walked out on stage together to give out an award. Before they did, Portman briefly paid tribute to Ted Demme. The filmmaker, former MTV producer (he came up with Yo! MTV Raps<\/em>), and nephew of legendary filmmaker Jonathan passed away in January of that year, collapsing at a celebrity basketball game and dying of a heart attack that may have been caused by cocaine found in his system. (Ironically, his last feature film was 2001\u2019s Blow<\/em>, starring Johnny Depp as an incarcerated, real-life drug trafficker.) He was 38.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe made amazing movies like The Ref<\/em> and Blow<\/em> and you should rent all his movies,\u201d Portman said before she and McGregor shouted \u201casscrack\u201d in unison, as an in-joke salute to Demme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Interestingly enough, Portman failed to mention Beautiful Girls<\/em>, the Demme movie she appeared in<\/em>. Released in February 1996 to likable reviews and a $10.6 million box office gross, Girls<\/em> is an ensemble dramedy in the vein of Diner<\/em> and The Big Chill<\/em>, although Demme said he was more influenced by the less Vietnam-y parts of The Deer Hunter<\/em>. Scott Rosenberg, who wrote the Tarantino knockoff Things to Do in Denver When You\u2019re Dead<\/em> (a Miramax release, BTW), wrote the script while hanging out in his Newton, Massachusetts hometown, waiting to see if Disney would pick up his script for Con Air<\/em>. \u201cI had just broken up with my girlfriend of seven years,\u201d he said in a 2010 interview<\/a>. \u201cThe snow plows were driving by my window, many driven by my buddies from high school. When it occurred to me: there is more quote \u2018action\u2019 going on with my buddies here – with turning 30 and not being able to deal with the women in their lives – than in twenty Jerry Bruckheimer movies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Timothy Hutton stars as Willie, a New York jazz pianist (and Rosenberg stand-in) who returns to his fictional hometown of Knight\u2019s Ridge, Massachusetts for his ten-year, high-school reunion. (The movie was actually shot in Minnesota.) He\u2019s wondering if he should quit performing and get a regular, nine-to-five gig; he\u2019s also unsure if he wants to marry his girlfriend (Annabeth Gish).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of his old pals are having relationship issues too. Tommy (Matt Dillon) is creeping around on his supportive girlfriend (Mira Sorvino) with his married, tempestuous ex (Lauren Holly) from high school. His roommate\/snow-plowing partner Paul (Michael Rapaport) often spends his nights vindictively plowing snow up the driveway of Jan (Martha Plimpton), who broke up with him because he wouldn\u2019t commit. (Paul pitifully tries to win her back by giving her an engagement ring with a stone that\u2019s brown \u2014 or \u201cchampagne,\u201d as he claims.) All the while, Andera (Uma Thurman), a visiting smokeshow from Chicago, shows up and gets these boys\u2019 tongues a-wagging. But she also makes them realize how dumbassish they\u2019ve become.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As you\u2019ve probably picked up on by now, Girls<\/em> is about men stuck in arrested development. These men-children try to stubbornly hold on to their \u201cfreedom,\u201d even if it means losing women who are not only easy to look at, but are willing to put up with their bullshit. While the movie is mostly about these guys, Demme and Rosenberg make it pretty clear they\u2019re on the ladies\u2019 side. They even have Rosie O\u2019Donnell show up as a no-nonsense chum who lectures Willie and Tommy on men\u2019s obsession with perfect pinups and skinny supermodels<\/a> during a riotous drugstore run. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At one point, Paul gives Willie the solution to all their problems: \u201cWe need models.\u201d (Willie receives this in Paul\u2019s bedroom, where supermodel pics cover the walls.) But Demme surrounds these numbskulls with women played by some of the loveliest actresses to come out of the \u201890s \u2014 and these muhfuckas still don\u2019t know what to do with \u2018em. Watch in horror as Paul, in an attempt to make his ex jealous, takes Andera to a bar where Jan is hanging out. Even when an unwitting Andera surprisingly plays along with the ruse, dude still screws it up by taking it one step too far. Keep an eye out for a cameo from Demme, who witnesses the cringey aftermath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, this sounds creepy as fuck. Thankfully, this relationship stays in the realm of cute chit-chat, as both Hutton and Portman\u2019s characters ultimately accept that this union could never be \u2014 even if they did wait until she got to voting age. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Girls<\/em> marked the second time in Portman\u2019s still-developing career where she played an underaged object of adoration. She memorably made her big-screen debut in Luc Besson\u2019s Leon: The Professional<\/em>, as a recently orphaned 12-year-old who grows uncomfortably attached to Jean Reno\u2019s white-knight hitman. (Besson was most likely inspired by his relationship with an actress he first met when she was 12<\/a>.) In recent years, Portman has admitted she doesn\u2019t look back on those early roles with fondness. As she said on Dax Shepard\u2019s Armchair Expert<\/em> podcast<\/a> in 2020:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Being sexualized as a child, I think took away from my own sexuality because it made me afraid and it made me \u2014 like, the way I could be safe was to be like, ‘I\u2019m conservative,’ and ‘I\u2019m serious and you should respect me,’ and ‘I’m smart,’ and ‘don\u2019t look at me that way.’ Whereas at that age, you do have your own sexuality and you do have your own desire, and you do want to explore things and you do want to be open. But you don\u2019t feel safe, necessarily, when there\u2019s older men that are interested, and you\u2019re like, ‘No, no, no, no.’ “<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n As the years have progressed, Girls<\/em> has become a film with several problematic fellas in its credits. It\u2019s bad enough it was executive-produced by a man who has spent a career trying to bed young starlets. (Portman says she went through a similar thing<\/a> with another unnamed producer.) But now, it features actors who\u2019ve allegedly done<\/a> women dirty<\/a> in the past. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite turning in a darling, mature performance, I don\u2019t blame Portman for wanting to forget about Girls. <\/em>We\u2019ve all done weird shit as teenagers. Unfortunately, Portman\u2019s weird shit can currently be streamed on Pluto TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m serious \u2014 “Beautiful Girls” is available to stream on Pluto TV.<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/beautiful-girls2-1024x574.jpeg\")
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If you\u2019re wondering what role Portman plays in all of this, she\u2019s Marty, a 13-year-old (and self-professed \u201cold soul\u201d) who lives next to Willie\u2019s family home. As they build an adorable rapport, Willie is so won over by Marty\u2019s wise-beyond-her-years wit and intelligence, he briefly considers waiting a few years until she\u2019s legal and free to date, which she\u2019s actually down with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n