Three For The Road -- `Boys On The Side' Forward But Likable

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XXX "Boys on the Side," with Whoopi Goldberg, Drew Barrymore, and Mary-Louise Parker. Directed by Herbert Ross, from a screenplay by Donald Roos. Alderwood, Crossroads, Everett 9, Factoria, Kent, Lewis & Clark, Metro, Mountlake 9, Newmark, Oak Tree, Puyallup, SeaTac North. "R" - Restricted; mature humor, profanity, brief nudity. -----------------------------------------------------------------

Like many of director Herbert Ross' films, "Boys on the Side" is an adequately entertaining and warmly humanitarian exercise in dramatic comedy. Many viewers will come to care for the trio of women, played by Whoopi Goldberg, Drew Barrymore and Mary-Louise Parker, who forge a unique bond of love that they haven't found in their dead-end relationships and semi-functional families.

The surrogate family formed by this threesome is also unconventional enough to lend a welcomed freshness to the ever-popular "women's film," while serving up enough laughter and heartache to qualify as a modest yet earnestly sincere tear-jerker. If you recall that Ross directed "The Turning Point" and "Steel Magnolias," you'll know what to expect from "Boys on the Side."

That can be a minor problem if you've found Ross' previous films too cloying to be genuinely affecting. In a Ross film, emotional situations can be slightly over-baked, and the frosting spread a bit too thick. "Boys on the Side" is no exception. In true Ross fashion, it's a lesbian dramatic comedy, a feminist heterosexual fugitive road movie and an AIDS drama, all rolled up into one heartwarming yet slightly artificial package.

Remember "Steel Magnolias"?

It's a melodramatic mishmash, but it's surprisingly well-handled. It starts out as a standard odd-couple pairing when Goldberg, a lesbian in limbo after a failed relationship, ditches her gig as a New York nightclub singer and heads for Los Angeles. She responds to a westbound ride-share with Parker, whose progressive illness (the cause of which is never fully explained) has led her on a nostalgic tour of her happier past. Remember Julia Roberts' seizures in "Steel Magnolias"? One telltale cough from Parker and you know it's Kleenex time.

They stop in Pittsburgh to pick up Barrymore, a free spirit on the run from police following an unintentionally terminal solution to an abusive relationship. The traveling trio finally settles in sunny Tucson, where they form a makeshift family centered around the local lesbian hangout (where Indigo Girls are the house band). It's here that "Boys on the Side" finally takes hold, emerging as a smoothly unassuming drama. Each of its engaging characters are given a moment to laugh, cry, fight, reconcile and cope with life's joys and pains. It's enough to make you shout "Group hug!" to the cast, but they manage to keep the sweetness at tolerable levels.

Consistent dialogue

While Ross finds a suitably casual groove, Donald Roos' screenplay is genuine enough to make these lives meaningful. The abundant humor occasionally skips into schmaltz, but the dialogue is consistently sharp and truthful. If you're drawn into the story, you might even fall for the scene that finds Goldberg crooning Roy Orbison's latter-day hit, "You Got It," for maximum three-hanky impact.

The three leads are allowed to inhabit roles that suit them, and Ross gets fine work from Parker's caring but condescending mother (Anita Gillette) and from Barrymore's new fiance (Matthew McConaughey), an overgrown boy scout whose conscientious devotion is funny and endearingly sincere.

Considering Hollywood's tendency for homogenizing this kind of material, Ross has achieved a mainstream breakthrough while pursuing his time-honored and risk-free formula for tugging at heartstrings. If he weren't so obvious about his tactics, he'd really be on to something here.