... but you can chose your friends (Beaches (DVD))

Member Name: Teena2003

Product:	Beaches (DVD)
Date:	17/07/05 (198 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great chick-flick, lovely to look at, well acted, well put together

Disadvantages: sad

Due to bad weather, successful singer CC (Cecilia Carol) Bloom is unable to get a flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco and decides to drive there herself. Memories of her life start to flash back into her mind.

A chance meeting on an Atlantic City beach, 11 year old CC meets Hillary Whitney. CC is from New York’s Bronx, loudmouthed, ambitious and obsessed with success and the total opposite of Hillary, who enjoyed a sheltered upbringing thanks to her rich family living just outside San Francisco. Despite these differences, both girls get a long extremely well and they decide to stay in touch by writing to each other.

CC, although struggling, is slowly making progress on the road to becoming a star while Hilary decides to study law, as expected from a Whitney. Both girls, now young women, move in together for a while in New York until Hillary is called back to her family home.

Live continues, not always running smoothly for either of them until tragedy strikes.


We are firmly in the arena of chick flick here. A story of two women’s friendship through the years, all the ups and downs that make the friendship even stronger. And as with a lot of chick flicks, it requires a large amount of tissues to see you through to the end.

A lot of us must have seen Bette Midler in a variety of movies, mainly comedies like Hokus Pokus, Ruthless People, First Wives Club. This is a departure from comedy. There are very few laughs in this movie. Although she still seems to play herself, hyperactive and always on the go, the subject matter is different. It is more ‘adult’ and not played for laughs.

This movie also seems to be the perfect vehicle establish Bette Midler as a singer. All songs in this movie are sung by Bette herself. I am sure you will have heard her renditions of ‘Under The Boardwalk’, ‘The Story of Love’ or ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’. But as a producer, she would have given herself some extra work to get herself ‘out there’, wouldn’t she?

Barbara Hershey did a pretty good job playing Hillary Whitney over a 20-year span. Of course, with Bette Midler being so hyper in most of her scenes, it was not easy for her to shine. She was pushed a little into the background and basically giving her co-star room to take over.

I was very impressed with the casting of the young CC and Hillary. They were both very good likenesses and Mayim Bialik, who plays the 11 year old CC, later went on to star in her own TV series ‘Blossom’.

This movie is about two friends. The other actors in the movie, although pretty good, are often only used as filler and don’t really come into their own to shine. I doubt you will be able to remember any of them afterwards, not that it would matter.

The movie was directed by Garry Marshall who has been responsible for a great number of very successful movies like ‘Runaway Bride’ or ‘Pretty Woman’. He delivered a nice movie, but very heavy on the sentimentality. It is very obvious where you are supposed to feel sorry for the characters and of course when to grab your tissues.

So, unless you like weepies and don’t mind buying up all of you supermarket’s stock of tissues, this might not be the movie for you. I actually watch it when I am depressed and need a good cry. It always leaves me feeling better afterwards.


I have noticed just lately that there are a lot of the older movies out there at the moment for a very reasonable price. If you like to replace you old, worn out videos with a selection of very cheap DVDs, then now is the time. This DVD was only £5.99 at my local Tesco.

While most of the more expensive new releases come with hours of extras on the DVDs, there’s also a growing trend to release just the movie and sell it at knock down prices. Maybe some companies have woken up to the fact that people don’t buy the DVDs for the extras they get with it, but want to have the movie at affordable price without all the rest of the rubbish.

Beaches is one of these DVDs. All you get for your money is the movie. The only extras are a couple of different language subtitles and scene selection. But the price is right and you don’t need all the rest.

For those who need to know the specs of this DVD

Touchstone Studios 1988
Widescreen
Movie length: 125 minutes
Region 2 (PAL)
Dolby digital 5.1
Certificate 12

© Teena2003/Minnitee

Summary: girly movie par excellence