If Valentine's Day is for lovers, then Galentine's Day is for friends. And out of all of the best Galentine's movies you can watch with your gal pals on February 13 — the unofficial holiday for "ladies celebrating ladies," as created by Amy Poehler's "Parks and Recreation" character Leslie Knope — there's one beloved title that my girlfriends and I reach for year after year. That would be the 1995 coming-of-age classic "Now and Then," about four inseparable friends confronting love, loss and looming adulthood in the magical summer of 1970.
It must be said: "Now and Then" was not a hit among critics, with its Rotten Tomatoes rating at a paltry 33% based on 21 reviews. But the '90s movie is a sweet, nostalgic trip down millennial memory lane, with a stacked cast that includes young Christina Ricci, Thora Birch, Ashleigh Aston Moore and Gaby Hoffmann as the four 12-year-old BFFs, and Rosie O'Donnell, Melanie Griffith, Rita Wilson and Demi Moore — the latter of whom is seeing quite a career resurgence these days with her Oscar-nominated starring role in "The Substance" — as their adult counterparts, respectively. That all-star cast is rounded out with supporting turns from Devon Sawa, Janeane Garofalo, Hank Azaria, Bonnie Hunt, and Academy Award winners Brendan Fraser and Cloris Leachman.
In the decades since its release, the wistful story of Roberta Martin, Teeny Tercell, Samantha Albertson and Chrissy DeWitt has become an enduring favorite for its truthful depiction of female friendship and how those close-knit relationships can grow and change over the years. In a New York Times piece celebrating the film's 25th anniversary, Ilana Kaplan praised the dramedy not only for how it examined those friendships but also for "giving the complexities of girlhood a weight that coming-of-age films [had heretofore] typically neglected."
Every friend group had a Teeny, a Roberta, a Sam and a Chrissy, Kaplan wrote, adding that the film "showed tween girls as fully realized characters who weren't written off or secondary. Tackling death and grief, along with budding sexuality gave their stories weight when narratives about female adolescence were often surface-level."
Mimicking the onscreen reunion of their characters, actresses Rita Wilson, Rosie O’Donnell and Melanie Griffith recently teamed up to honor Demi Moore at this year's Women in Hollywood event. “'Now and Then' was more than just a film to me, it was an adventure; it was a sweet story about friendship, resilience and navigating the ups and downs of life together," Moore proclaimed from the podium, per The Hollywood Reporter. "And here we are, f***ing 30 years later, still standing side by side.”
Moore also pitched that it's high time for a "Now and Then" remake or sequel — consider us seated!
While we wait for that fabulous foursome to reunite onscreen, you can gather your gals and settle in for a nostalgia-inducing Galentine's Day watch of "Now and Then," which is currently available for rent or purchase on VOD platforms like Amazon and Apple.
