Parents need to know that this movie has non-explicit teenage sex and pregnancy. Characters drink, smoke, and use drugs, including use of a hallucinogenic drug while watching a child and heroin addiction. A character sells drugs, and Bev and Fay briefly become involved in helping him. There is a painful scene of withdrawal. All of this is presented in a realistic manner with realistic consequences that should help teenagers understand the seriousness of this behavior. There's also some strong language.
One of my all-time favorite movies. Tells a really amazing story about a creative teenager who did everything wrong in her life. I really recommend this movie to anybody who is a fan of comedy mixed with drama. Great, great movie. Barrymore's acting is beautiful. Other actors are good, too. Very interesting to watch, much like a Lifetime Original movie. Iffy, though, for young teens & younger. Some elements are kind of mature-rated, hard for younger viewers to understand. But... overall, amazing picture.
I described pretty much the whole plot in my review, but there's good info
Very educational movie. If you think about it, anyway. It's based on a true story. The main character girl makes mistake after mistake; she's clearly lost. She doesn't save herself for marriage, and she eventually gets pregnant (and thinks the baby is far worse than her fornication when the baby wasn't the problem at all). She debates with herself and her boyfriend on whether or not she should abort her child. Finally doing the right things, she keeps her baby and marries the father of her child. But, after a few years, she tells her husband to go away forever because of his addiction to drugs (instead of being patient with him, and really trying to help him). Later in her life, she becomes excessively controlling of her son; finally doing another right thing, she lets her son go to the college he wants to go to.This movie is a good depiction of what the state of fallen humanity is - lost. And we need help from Jesus. Although this movie really has nothing to do with God, it shows how life is for people when they have no guidance by not studying their Bibles, not listening to wisdom. (The only parts I would fast forward is a few lingering make-out scenes, and a brief parked-car-at-night-in-front-of-a-waterfall-at-a-park-looking-place. But these things are really only there to make the movie more realistic. There's nothing very explicit, though.)