"Beaches" is a bosom-buddy movie about a friendship that was meant to be---like Laverne and Shirley or Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon (in the "Odd Couple"). As the buddy movie rule requires, it is a tale of abiding love between opposite souls, a friendship formed against the odds. The core plot of this drama, however, is more than a pack of cliches. There is not a lot of originality in this movie, and at times, it seems like you are watching the latest "General Hospital".
Maybe the problem is with the flashbacks. If they told the story from beginning to end, it would have felt less like the melodramatic tearjerker that it is.
…
