Riding in Cars with Boys by Beverly Donofrio

By failing to oversimplify life, Marshall shaped a film that exists much closer to ‘real life’ – so often confusing, disordered… complicated. Of course, it’s these universally recognisable failings, surprisingly absent in so many movies, that make her character so believable. She’s a far-from-perfect parent, who puts herself first, makes it clear that her son’s birth didn’t complete her or her life. She’s a woman with ambitions, ones that didn’t include a white gown and a hanger-on husband.

Most importantly, she doesn’t fit her gender ‘role’.

Her inability to recognise her own shortcomings is a very human trait, so to her transition from naïve bobby soxer to trailer park mom, which is told sentimentally but without too much schmaltz. But she’s just not smart enough to realise that she blames everyone else – her father, her drug-addicted husband and most of all, her young son – for all her problems.īev isn’t a particularly admirable character but she’s real and complex. Determined to live out her childhood dreams and make a better life, Bev tries to continue her studies and win a college scholarship. In short, she’s not a ‘Hollywood-ised’ idea of what a woman should be.īased on Beverly D’Onofrio‘s autobiography, the film’s heroine (played by Drew Barrymore) finds herself pregnant at 15, kicked out of home and married to the local dropout Ray Hasek (Steve Zahn).

Beverly D’Onofrio, the flawed lead in Penny Marshall’s Riding in Cars with Boys (2001), manages to find a middle ground: she’s just likeable enough to solicit sympathy rather than alienation, real enough to be relatable. After all, criticising what gets to the screen feels counter-intuitive. The lack of strong female leads is well documented, less so the issues with the leads that do make it to the screen.

Riding in Cars with Boys by Beverly Donofrio