Directed by Garry Marshall

Beaches follows a similar story structure to many (all) of Garry Marshall’s movies.

Introduction to character → Mild conflict → Big crescendo → Major conflict → Forgiveness → Resolution

This time, though, we go on the journey with two friends instead of romantic partners.

Bette Midler plays a singer from the Bronx who always dreamed of Broadway opposite Barbara Hershey‘s buttoned-up East Coast lawyer.

The girls meet as children on Venice Beach, where Midler’s C.C. Bloom is already launching a career in the theatre. They begin writing letters but don’t meet again until adulthood. From there, they form a rocky friendship: Rooming together in a studio apartment, falling in love with the same man, fighting over the other’s successes, losing touch after years apart, reconnecting, fighting again, and ultimately forming an unbreakable bond.

Put simply, Beaches tells the story of platonic relationships, and for that it is beloved by many women — often cited as a reminder to call an old friend.

Although the destination is no surprise, the journey there isn’t unpleasant, and some of those Broadway scenes really show off Midler’s vocal range, which is fun. C.C. Bloom claimed her Sizzler revue was in poor taste, but that “brassiere number” is one of most tolerable moments of the movie!

The cast

Lainie Kazan shone in the role that probably landed her My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but the most impressive casting by far was Mayim Bialik as the young Midler. They couldn’t have looked more alike, and that alone sold those flashback scenes.

Final thoughts

Beaches feels like a movie you needed to have watched in the moment, or in a defining period of your life, to connect with. For the rest of us, it’s just sort of there in the ether.

The movie is definitely watchable, and Bette Midler has some excellent on-stage scenes, but this isn’t one I’ll be returning to.

This movie is bad.

My rating: 2.5/5