History Film / RidingInCarsWithBoys

** Beverly moreso leans towards the emotionally abusive and neglectful versions of such. Highlights include nearly letting Jason drown due to getting high and calling motherhood a curse to his face.

* AutoErotica: Bev and Ray, along with Bobby and Fay [[TheirFirstTime lose their virginities]] in their date's car, which also led to Jason and Amelia's conceptions.

* BestFriendsInLaw: [[spoiler:Bev's son Jason eventually starts a serious relationship with her best friend's daughter Amelia.]]

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Bev gets her book published but loses her oldest best friend Fay and Jason leaves to be with Amelia. Still, the relationship between mother and son remains strenuous and is likely to stay so.]]
* BookEnds: The film begins and ends with Bev and her father Leonard having a conversation.
* ButICantBePregnant: Bev's reaction when she finds out that she's expecting.
* ChildrenRaiseYou: Subverted. While Bev does try to do things that will enrich her and Jason's lives and protect him (and ultimately lets him transfer colleges to be with Amelia), she for the most part remains self-interested and embittered about her circumstances, namely around motherhood robbing her of her dreams.
* DaddysGirl: Beverly is clearly one; however, the pregnancy and her life afterward disappoints him.
* DefiledForever: Bev's parents, especially her father, treat her like this when she gets pregnant.

** When Ray reveals his heroin addiction, it's simply expected of Bev that ''she'll'' be the one who gets him clean; the possibility of rehab or professional detox (without which Ray's sobriety is a virtual impossibility) is never brought up.
** Bev and Fay are forced to drop out of high school and miss out on attending their school prom due to their pregnancies, Title IX [[note]]which bars discrimination on the basis of sex[[/note]] didn't exist until the early 1970s.
** At Bev's wedding, a [[spoiler: pregnant]] Fay drinks wine along with everyone else save for the bride.
* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: Subverted, Bev considers having an [[BackAlleyDoctor back-alley abortion]] in Puerto Rico, since abortion in the United States was outlawed before 1973.
* GlorifiedSpermDonor: Ray, the father of Beverly's baby, is essentially this since Beverly and her family raises her son.

* HappilyMarried: Bev's parents, Leonard and Teresa, are very much so, even enjoying a dance together at Bev's [[ShotgunWedding ordered wedding.]] Tina and Kevin also appear to being on their way to becoming this as well.
* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: Fay is very kindhearted, and is a loving mother to her daughter Amelia, and equally loving friend to Bev.
* InformedAttribute: Bev is supposedly a great writer and WiseBeyondHerYears, but she lacks a great deal of common sense, even into her twenties. She also lacks knowledge of things someone her age should be aware of, like what her water breaking should look/feel like.
* ItsAllAboutMe: Bev is more concerned about getting her book published than what kind of emotional damage Jason might suffer coming face-to-face with his deadbeat father.
* NothingButHits: It's TheSixties, after all.

* NeverMyFault: Bev blames Jason for everything wrong with her life, Jason blames her for everything wrong with his. Ray, at least, knows he has no one to blame but himself.
* TheOneWhoMadeItOut: Tina basically gets everything Bev ever wanted: doesn't get knocked up, goes to college, and marries a good, reliable man she loves.
* OpiumDen: Inverted. Beverly uses her house for weed purposes.
* ParentingTheHusband: Ray, other than being a drug addict, is imbecilic, which makes Beverly's circumstances harder.
* PlatonicLifePartners: Bev's strongest and healthiest relationship is with her best friend Fay [[spoiler: until Fay and Amelia are forced to move away after she's arrested for drying weed.]]
* PurpleProse: Bev's letter to her parents about her pregnancy drips with it. The line "But now, like the poison from an adder's tongue..." especially stands out.
* SayingTooMuch: Bev tells her dad she and Ray never did anything below the waist...then she specifies ''her'' waist.
* SheIsAllGrownUp: Much to Leonard's dismay, who refused to buy her a bra for Christmas when she was 11.
* StaircaseTumble: Fay suggests that Bev, who just discovered that she was pregnant, have this to "accidentally" lose the pregnancy (citing how this is how her own Aunt had legitimately lost an intended pregnancy). Although initially disgusted, she soon attempts it multiple times, only to chicken out every time.

* TheStoner: Ray and Lizard, and later Bev and Fay.
* ToBeLawfulOrGood: Bev's father chooses the former when [[spoiler:he arrests Bev for drying weed.]]

** Also, Fay's family believes that Beverly is this to their daughter. When initially caught in the car, they forebade her from seeing her, and even years later, the family still dislikes her and only bailed Fay out of jail on the condition that she never speak to Bev again.
* TragicDream: Bev just wants to go to college; the demands of her family keep her from it. It's clear that she's now projected all her dreams on Jason. Tragically, because her own dreams were dashed because of becoming pregnant of Jason and not getting any help with raising him, she also took out a lot of undue anger on him as well; which does impact quite a few mothers who learn the hard way that early motherhood may not be all it's cracked up to be.

* WellDoneSonGuy: Averted, Bev's father never forgives her for getting pregnant at 15.

* ToxicFriendInfluence: Lizard is the one who introduced Ray to drugs in the first place ''and'' [[KarmaHoudini suffered no consequences for it]].
%%** Also, Fay's family believes that Beverly is this to their daughter.

%%* VictoriousChildhoodFriend: Jason and Amelia.

* BlackSheep: After getting pregnant, she essentially becomes this, with her father going as far as to humiliate her at her own wedding.

* PoisonousFriend: Lizard. He's the one who introduced Ray to drugs in the first place ''and'' [[KarmaHoudini suffered no consequences for it]].

* ToxicFriendInfluence: Lizard to Ray. Also, Fay's family believes that Beverly is this to their daughter.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: When Ray reveals his heroin addiction, it's simply expected of Bev that ''she'll'' be the one who gets him clean; the possibility of rehab or professional detox (without which Ray's sobriety is a virtual impossibility) is never brought up.

* YourCheatingHeart: Bobby leaves Fay for a woman he met in Vietnam named [[WhoNamesTheirKidDude Monsoon]].