THE BACKSEAT BOYS

he struggle to turn real-life suffering into art is at the heart of Riding in Cars with Boys, a new movie from Columbia Pictures starring Drew Barrymore, directed by Penny Marshall, and based on a memoir by Beverly Donofrio. "Every minute of the 1 1 years it took to bring this to the screen, I knew it would be a movie," Donofrio says of her 1990 book, in which she recounts her pregnancy at age 15, her rocky marriage to a heroin addict, and her eventual escape to Wesleyan University and a successful writing career. Who better to portray a bad-girlwho-makes-good than Drew Barrymore, who has grown out of her

all-too-well-documented wild years and become a highly respected star? "Beverly and I get along like a house on fire," Barrymore says, "because, even though our circumstances at times were different, we really had the same emotions, where you feel like the world is working against you, or your family is breaking your heart, or you've done too much too soon, at too young of an age." Director Penny Marshall also feels a personal connection to the story. "Beverly and I grew up around the same time and we both had kids young," she says, adding, "but she had more aspirations than I did. I don't think I had any."

MICHAEL HOGAN