Yes, I know; this is a chick flick. I watched it because my lovely wife wanted to show me one of her favourite films and I'm blogging it because it's quite well known. And you know what? I quite enjoyed it. I won't put it any stronger than that; it isn't superlatively brilliant in the way that Pretty Woman is (yes, I did just say that), but it's a good film.
The film follows the lives of two women from childhood to one of them suffering a tragic, early death. CC is poor, Jewish and very much a New Yorker, while Hillary is a rich WASP girl from an established East Coast family. They bond over shared ambitions to go into musical theatre- a world of which I know nothing- but their very different natures later lead to both friction and reconciliation.
Much as CC may struggle in her early days through lack of money, she benefits from being carefree and unrestricted, while Hillary is pressured into becoming a bored housewife to an awful, snobbish husband, and CC's telling it like it is here leads to the big clash between them that drives the structure of the main plot. Their eventual full reconciliation only comes at the price of Hillary's sad decline and death. There is a happy ending, of sorts, as CC adopts Hillary's orphaned daughter.
It's a fairly gripping drama, and Bette Midler is superb. I won't pretend this is my cup of tea but there are many things to enjoy in this film.
I had a friend who saw it at least ten times it was a bit much for me but I liked it and the younger CC was played by Mayim Bayalik who plays Amy in the Big Bang.
ReplyDeleteWow! I never quite clocked that.
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