On a hot summer day, a remarkable and unlikely friendship begins on the beach at Atlantic City. Eleven-year-olds C.C. Bloom and Hilary Whitney are from different worlds; brash, streetwise C.C. wants to be a famous singing star, while Hilary is a proper young lady from San Francisco. Although they go their separate ways, they vow to remain friends, and through letters they share each other’s hopes, dreams, and frustrations. Years later their lives again entwine when Hilary, now a lawyer, moves in with rising actress C.C.. Their friendship is strained when C.C.’s director, John—with whom she is in love—falls for Hilary. Suddenly Hilary returns to California to take care of her ailing father and John turns to C.C.. Hilary marries another lawyer who eventually leaves her. The strength of Hilary and C.C.’s relationship sustains them through the successes and disappointments of their marriages and careers, through the birth of Hilary’s daughter, and ultimately through a crisis that tests their love and teaches them the true meaning of friendship. Beaches premiered in New York on December 21, 1988, and was released on January 13, 1989. This Touchstone film was directed by Garry Marshall and starred Bette Midler as C.C. and Barbara Hershey as Hilary.
