Wolff rating: NOT BAD
Plot summary: Three young women working in a pizza parlor in Connecticut come to life and love.
Biased, pithy comments: There's a point in this movie where Roberts is dressed in a beautiful black Versace-style dress. She's standing, all high-heels and frizzy hair, in front of a cherry-red 911 Porsche Carerra convertible with a preppy young man with hisformal-wear collar turned up, standing by the side of the road surrounded by autumn leaves. It is as abstract and 80s as a Nagel print---this was the life in the go-go times, back when east-coast prep-look was the pinnacle of style and German engineering was class. Now, I suppose, the girl would have more natural hair, they'd both be wearing jeans, they'd have an SUV, and one or more of them would be exposing their belly-buttons. I can remember wanting the girl with the frizzy hair and the Porsche, and instead I have a wonderful woman with straight hair and a Lexus. Go figure. Anyway, the point of all of this is, I guess, that this movie is a piece of pop culture strongly influenced by 80s style. When Taylor's character asks for a little space, it's tentative and moderated by a tempered feminism that hasn't hit Ally McBeal and Riot Grrrls yet. Once you get past that, it's a well-acted bit of puffery---the girls are pretty, they sing ``R-E-S-P-E-C-T'', and their lives are shown entirely in contrast to their emotional lives with their men. There's some subplot about the pizza parlor, but they could be working in a beauty parlor or even on a fishing boat and it'd be about the same. I don't recommend it, but it's not entirely uncompelling. It's perhaps most notable not for what it is (an airheaded summer chick flick) but for how many people in it go on to have such success. For Robters, Taylor, and Gish, this is their third movie (or so) of a career that will span scores more, and Roberts will go on to be the highest-paid woman actor ever.
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Lili Taylor, Julia Roberts, Annabeth Gish.
Directed by: Donald Petrie