Beaches is a 1988 American musical comedy drama film based on the 1985 novel of the same name by Iris Rainer Dart.

It was directed by Garry Marshall from a screenplay by Mary Agnes Donoghue, and stars Bette Midler, Barbara Hershey, Mayim Bialik, John Heard, James Read, Spalding Gray, and Lainie Kazan.

Bloom, a New York actress and singer, receives a note during a concert rehearsal in Los Angeles and hurriedly leaves to be with her friend Hillary Whitney, a San Francisco heiress and lawyer.

The consensus summarizes: "Not all great soundtracks make good movies, and Beaches lacks the wind beneath its wings.

"[7] Critics almost unanimously found the film's emotional moments to be unearned, calculated, and familiar to the point of being predictable.

He found the problem was compounded by the film foreshadowing Hillary's death right from the beginning, and gave it two and a half stars.

[8] Gene Siskel called it "a much too mechanical tearjerker" and criticized the slow pace, but acknowledged that he heard some sniffling among the audience and gave it two and a half stars.

[9] Jay Boyar noted in the Orlando Sentinel, "In advance publicity for Beaches, it has been routinely referred to as a 'tear-jerker.'

This is the sort of picture in which people slap each other as they take their marriage vows, suddenly develop life-threatening diseases, and, again, have violent confrontations whenever there's a break in the action.

Similarly to Ebert, he called it "a 1940s retread", noting its use of antiquated themes like the idea that a woman must choose between being a mother and having a career.

[10] Dave Kehr likewise stated in the Chicago Tribune that "Beaches struggles to update a 1940s formula", describing it as particularly derivative of the 1943 film Old Acquaintance.

and Hillary to be implausible and lacking in genuine warmth, and commented that "The cardinal rule of melodrama ... is that emotion must follow from situation.

[11] Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times called it "the most shamelessly manipulative movie since they shot the dog in The Biscuit Eater."

While opining that emotional manipulation isn't necessarily bad, she felt the film had failed to capture what made the novel it is adapted from such an effective tearjerker, by neglecting the essence of C.C.

and Hillary's childhood were more emotionally convincing and enjoyable than the rest of the film, with particular praise for Mayim Bialik's performance.

[9][10][11][12] Midler's numerous singing performances were also frequently cited as a strong point in a mostly weak film.

In reviews for the 2017 remake, The New York Times and CNN Entertainment recalled the 1988 film as, respectively, "a pastiche of 1950s tear-jerkers that was set, strangely and uncomfortably, in the 1970s and ’80s.

... a shamelessly retrograde and literal-minded soap opera with a veneer of fake feminism"[13] and "a film that delivered a hit song and strong box-office results but is remembered mostly for its high schmaltz factor.

The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Art Direction (Albert Brenner and Garrett Lewis).

The updated version was directed by Allison Anders with the script by Bart Barker and Nikole Beckwith, and Idina Menzel plays the role of C.C.