Beautiful Girls directed by Ted Demme (1996), is a film about a man who lives in New York City as a pianist but goes home to rural New York for a High School Reunion and reunites with old friends, befriends a 13 year old, involves himself in his friends drama, and realizes that what he has isn’t that bad. Most of the film is a fun romp between a guy and his old high school buddies. He gets involved with observing their current relationships, their life problems, and their plans to fix those problems. However, there is a huge problem, this character is thinking of a child in a somewhat sexual manner and maybe about grooming her. Other characters know of this and try to push him away from her. So, the main character knows its wrong, some of his friends know that its wrong, and it’s seen as a problem but not a big enough one to a focal point. It should have never been an option or part of the story. There are plenty of films and shows where older people befriend children and it’s not sexual and they’re great stories. I know in certain circumstances it makes sense and maybe the characters are not villainized for it because it’s modeled after past histories or the fantasy that the story is in allows it. This was set within the 80s or 90s. It wasn’t needed. I will probably never watch this again and probably not worth it for you to watch.
Watched on HBO Max.
Grizzly Era Studios 