IT AIN'T EASY BEING A GIRL: THE SLUMS OF BEVERLY HILLS

Reviewed by Vickie Reichardt, Cinema Geek

Vick's Rating:

= There's two hours of my life I'll never see again. Is it too late to ask for my money back?
= They could have done SO much better. Wait for the video.
= Not bad at all. Some solid work.
= Wow! I'm very impressed. I might go see this one again.
= For the love of all that is good and kind in the world, what an amazing movie!!!

Written and directed by Tamara Jenkins

CAST:

Vivian........Natasha Lyonne
Murray.............Alan Arkin
Rita..............Marisa Tomei
Ben...........David Krumholtz
Eliot............Kevin Corrigan

Breasts. Boys. Beverly Hills. That's the world inhabited by "blossoming" 15-year-old Vivian Abramowitz (Natasha Lyonne) in this intelligent pseudo-coming-of-age comedy that's as funny as it is touching.

Written and directed by Tamara Jenkins--and loosely based on elements of her own teenage years--"The Slums of Beverly Hills" is set in 1976 in the lesser-known (read: poorer) areas of Beverly Hills--the streets with low-rent apartments and broken dreams that border the wealthy enclave. Cliched, I know, but true. It's here that divorced dad Murray Abramowitz (Alan Arkin) has hauled his family in order to make a good life for them, even if all that "good life" amounts to is nothing more than a spiffy zip code. Eldest child Ben (David Krumholtz) describes their lifestyle by comparing the family to nomads: they're constantly on the move from place to place, as Murray sneaks them out of one cheap and tacky apartment and into another, time and again, to avoid rent payments. Vivian is the only girl in the family and her mother lives back on the East Coast, so her burgeoning womanhood (read: large breasts) causes her some grief--she's a decidedly non-girly girl stuck in a young woman's body, and her sizable assets prove to be a source of much discussion for her family and anyone else who feels like chiming in.

Enter cousin Rita (Marisa Tomei), a scattered but free-spirited woman who's fled a drug-rehab clinic in northern California. She quickly becomes a meal ticket for Murray and the kids when he uses the troubled twenty-nine-year-old to squeeze some money out of her father, his well-to-do brother. But with the added income intended to help Murray take care of Rita, comes a whole mess of trouble and an entirely new set of problems that test the bonds of this already unusual family.

Director Jenkins has fashioned herself a fine film. The story takes a straightforward approach to addressing Vivian's growing pains, and an honest look at how a seemingly unconventional family can get their act together, even if their methods seem mad to everyone else. As a whole, it worked for me on a character level more so than a story level. That's not to say that the story was weak or poorly developed or ludicrous, it was good. I just found the people in the story far more interesting than the events going on around them. And maybe that's how it should be.

Alan Arkin brings a level of truth to his role as a flying-by-the-seat-of-his-pants dad. He tries his best and it's not until the low-key last third of the film that the audience gets to find out what really makes this guy tick. David Krumholtz and Kevin Corrigan are each great young talents--one's a perpetual smartass and the other is always that left-of-center guy who could be charming or slightly deranged. Both do fine work here. And Marisa Tomei! What a nice job! She was completely convincing as a young woman scrambling to keep her life together and clearly failing despite her best efforts. It's some of her best work in a long time.

It's newcomer Natasha Lyonne who steals the show, though, and rightfully so. She's hysterical when she needs to be and painfully moving at the same time. She successfully portrays the emotional hurricane of the typical teenage girl. Vivian is not ready to be a woman, but still wants to lose her virginity. She's bored by people's fascination with her breasts, but is interested in what her creepy neighbor (Kevin Corrigan) thinks when he looks at them. Lyonne is a natural performer and her talent shines through.

But the best part of the movie, for me anyway, was the secret language that Vivian and Rita used (presumably made up when the pair were younger) when discussing sensitive matters. If anyone can teach me how to do that, please let me know.

ANOTHER NOTEWORTHY FILM

If you're out at the theater and in need of another film with strong, young female characters, check out "Strike." Set at an all-girls boarding school in 1963, the film follows five friends (Kirsten Dunst, Gaby Hoffmann, Monica Keena, Heather Matarazzo and Merritt Wever) as they cope with the news that their beloved school will be going coed the following year. Some of them couldn't be happier, others feel the move will automatically lower the collective I.Q. of the entire student body. Filled with messages of empowerment for young women and enough laughs to keep both sexes entertained, this charming movie makes for a nice companion piece to "Slums."

Vickie, a self-confessed movie addict, has spent the last few years working at an entertainment magazine in Canada. When she's not toiling away at her computer in the office, she's toiling away at her computer at home-- hacking away at unfinished screenplays and planning her acceptance speech for the Academy Awards.