Waiting to inhale

A new mini-genre of films has evolved of late whose theme is that men just don't get it, or maybe just don't want it. The most damaging examples are those that are the most sympathetic. Following in the tradition of Edward Burns's The Brothers McMullen is Beautiful Girls, a funny, unexpectedly touching, sometimes enlightening look at male opacity. Scripted with deft and inventive dialogue by Needham-born Scott Rosenberg, directed with casual verve by Ted Demme, Girls passes with the exuberant frivolity of a good party and ends with the blurred clarity of a morning after.

This genre started long before Burns's Brothers; if anything, Girls is a '90s updating of Barry Levinson's Diner (1982) or George Lucas's American Graffiti (1973). The protagonists, though, are older -- the big crisis for everyone is turning 30. And the century is older too. The idealism and anarchy of those earlier films is missing -- Girls is a bit worn around the edges. As it follows its ensemble of working-class, aging Generation Xers (has it come to that already?), Girls decides not just that it doesn't want to have fun, but that it prefers a grim solidity that looks suspiciously like complacency.

Typical of these blue-collar soul-searchers is Willie Conway (Timothy Hutton, whose pinched dark good looks cast a shadow of melancholy), an aspiring musician who plays piano in Manhattan bars and whose relationship to girlfriend Tracy (Annabeth Gish) has reached an impasse. She's got it made as a lawyer, and Willie is anxious about his future, especially as he heads back to his old home to celebrate a high-school reunion. His pal Tommy "Birdman" Rowland (Matt Dillon, who seems to have settled into being typecast as a townie with a Bud in his hand) is mired in the past. A legend in high school for his good looks, charm, and likeliness to succeed, Tommy now drives a snowplow and watches hockey games with girlfriend Sharon (Mira Sorvino, sans funny voice and much distinctiveness) asleep on his lap.

Other members of the old high-school gang are more feckless. Paul (Michael Rapaport, thoroughly enjoying playing the good-natured boor) has never grown out of the beer-swilling rowdiness of adolescence, and neither has his notion of male-female relations developed much beyond the centerfold stage (his wall is plastered with pin-ups of supermodels; his St. Bernard is called Elle Macpherson). Paul's broken up with longtime girlfriend Jan (Martha Plimpton) because she suggested getting married, which would put an end to the party forever. Only Mo (Noah Emmerich, bearish and engaging in his befuddlement) seems to have embraced his biological fate with equanimity; portly, happily married, the floor manager of a textile mill, he arouses Paul's incredulous contempt as he cavorts with his two kids at a skating rink. "He's like an insane person who doesn't know he's insane," Paul snorts. "He's content."

Contentment, however, is a virtue in this film, not to mention a goal that contributes to its tendency toward the glib and formulaic. Too often the words "commitment" and "grow up" keep coming up. But most of Rosenberg's writing is brisk and brilliant, both imaginative and authentic. Few writers have his gift for the rough-hewn conversational bon mot -- both from male and female characters. This may be the first film in which Rosie O'Donnell is a pleasure, as the tart owner of the local beauty salon and the spokesperson for fellow female sufferers' discontents.

Not much happens in Beautiful Girls; like life, it's a series of minor disasters and epiphanies separated by pop songs overheard on a car radio. In effect, it's a tale of close encounters of the female kind. The girls of the title are angelic visitors from another realm who either tempt or teach -- in either case, they guide the boys into good behavior. There's Darian (Lauren Holly), Tommy's flame from high school; married and with a kid, she lures her ex into an adulterous affair. Another is Andera (Uma Thurman), an ethereal beauty from out of town who claims that all she needs to be happy is someone to say "Good night, sweet girl" to her for the rest of her life.

Most instructive, though, is Marty, Willie's 13-year-old neighbor. Played by Natalie Portman in an astounding balance of precocity, shyness, passion, and wit, she has not only the best lines in the movie but the most moving role. It's not hard to see how Willie could be attracted to her, how he could ponder waiting some five or 10 years for her so their relationship might not seem so subversive. Unlike the snowbound, diminished expectations of this benighted present, she represents a future brimming with boldness and life.