Riding In Cars With Boys (2001)

(In theaters, December 2001) This simply isn’t my type of film. I have no interest whatsoever in an oh-so-courageous biography of a woman who screwed up her life by having a baby during her teenage years. I don’t usually see these movies and normally wouldn’t have seen this one. Should I feel comfortable giving bad marks to this film if it’s not what I’d watch? Well, when it’s as boring as Riding In Cars With Boys (which cars? which boys?), it’s hard to feel guilty doing so. The characters aren’t sympathetic, James Woods is wasted, the structure lacks dramatic intensity and everyone is miserable throughout the film, including me. In fact, the best attribute of Riding In Cars With Boys is to act as a strong warning; Most Americans aren’t smart. Most Americans aren’t interesting. Most Americans don’t deserve our attention. This is how most people live, and it sucks, and I see enough of it in my own life to desperately avoid it in the theater.