Friendship Forever in Beaches

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Beaches is a movie about best friends, C.C. Bloom (Bette Midler) and Hillary Whitney (Barbara Hershey) meet for the first time under the boardwalk at the age of 11-years-old. Bloom grew up in the Bronx of New York City with very little money and the belief that one day she would be rich and famous. Whitney came from money living in Appleton, California where she dreamed of one day not having to follow all her high society rules and of being free to make choices and decisions on her own. The two girls stay connected through letters until after their college years when they were final reunited in New York after Whitney runs away from her old life to pursue her dream of “freedom”. Bloom is already working hard on her dream of becoming famous by staring in the leading role of the Falcon Players new musical.

Life was great until they both fall for the same man, Bloom's boss John. Whitney sleeps with John and Bloom claims all is fine, but deep down she is hurt. This is the start of what is too soon be an interpersonal conflict, a disagreement between connected individuals who perceive their goals as incompatible.[Devito, p. 276] When an unexpected illness forces Whitney to go back and care for her allying father, letter writing again the avenue these friends must use to stay connected. Whitney begins to date Micheal, her father's attorney and eventually marries him. Bloom and John also begin to date and get married shortly after Whitney's wedding. The friends are reunited in person when Micheal and Whitney come to New York to see Bloom's Broadway musical. Jealousy begins to rear its ugly head and a conflict occurs between these friends. Beginning in Chapter 5 of the movie both Whitney and Bloom use myth when it comes to conflict, try...

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...e movie for my speech class I understand why I enjoy it so much. I can relate to the characters, have made some of the same conflict choices in my life, and am lucky to have a friendship like I do. The things that draw me to my favorite movies are seeing my self in the actors behaviors and hoping that I can achieve the outcomes the actors do. I never really noticed that until I spent the time analyzing this film and thinking about my other favorite films. Conflict can be a productive part of a relationship if we incorporate the principles we learned throughout The Interpersonal Communication Book that our speech teacher chose for us to learn from. For this experience I am grateful.

Works Cited:

Devito, Joseph A. The Interpersonal Communication Book. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc., 2007

Marshall, Garry. Beaches. Touchstone Home Entertainment. 2005

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