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11/30/01
Riding in Cars with Boys (2001)
48
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:107
Fresh:51
Rotten:56
Average Rating:5.2/10
Consensus: Riding in Cars With Boys suffers from mixing grit and pathos with cuteness and comedy. Ironically, many critics found Zahn's character more compelling and three-dimensional than Barrymore's.
Runtime: 2 hrs 11 mins
Genre: Dramas
US Box Office: $29,601,298
Synopsis: Beverly loves boys, but she knows her limits: nothing below the waist (hers), if she doesn't know the boy. Ray, however, a sweet-natured but shiftless young man is the exception to her rule and... [More]
Starring: Drew Barrymore, Steve Zahn, James Woods, Brittany Murphy
Director: Penny Marshall
Reviews for Riding in Cars with Boys
Top CriticClick to read the article
08/17/02
Top CriticOnce the novelty wears off, you feel like you’ve been tricked into watching someone else’s home movies for two-plus hours.
10/18/01
Always finding a way to lighten its weightiness with a chuckle, the film fields some pretty heavy subject matter -- like life.
10/17/01
A cautionary tale of heartwarming, and irritating, proportions.
10/18/01
There's the core of a good, tough movie lost under Marshall's self-indulgence.
10/19/01
A scattershot affair.
10/21/01
I can't call Riding In Cars With Boys' poor-me martyr mom anything other than a character that puts the jerk in this wannabe tear-jerker.
10/19/01
Would be the stuff of a Lifetime Channel movie-of-the-week if not for ...a phenomenal performance of extraordinary depth and range by Drew Barrymore.
10/18/01
A pleasant, mostly realistic slice of life that puts Barrymore's trademark enthusiasm to good use.
10/19/01
Portrays the healing power of familial love once one is able to drop past disappointments, resentments, and pain.
11/06/01
It's neither as much fun as it could be, nor as emotionally affecting.
10/28/01
As a flawed but lovably lionhearted woman, Barrymore triumphantly comes of age as an actress.
10/19/01
...Better than its dreadful theatrical campaign suggested [but] as prosaically made as the others in Penny Marshall's post-Big canon.
03/17/02
"Riding in Cars with Boys" has its moments along the way, but it sputters and stalls before completing its journey.
10/21/01
Left a lot of the book's plot on the cutting-room floor in the transition from the page to the screen.
10/18/01
Whatever may have distinguished the book certainly doesn't show up in the movie.
10/25/01
Something is being said about the lifelong relationship between parents and children, but it is too faint to be understood very well.
10/19/01
I can take or leave sentimentality, but I cannot ignore when a film actually portrays at least three truthful, complex relationships.
02/26/02
A film like this is refreshing and startling in the way it cuts loose from formula and shows us confused lives we recognize.
10/19/01
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