Anyone can shine next to Jason Lee. Eric Roberts is the UConn Women's Basketball Team of bad acting and Jason Lee might be distant, but he is #2 in the coaches poll.
Beautiful Girls was a standup double, but there is no way it could have been better (and probably much worse) without Timothy Hutton, Noah Emmerich, Natalie Portman, Matt Dillon, and especially Michael Rappaport ("Alcoholic high school buddy s-hi-t for brains") Though it was obvious that most of the actors were older than the 28-ish age frame for which they were cast (10th year high school reunion) and Rosie O'Donnell acted like my mother, who was approaching 50 at the time. Her role could have been filled by a Janeane Garofalo type, but that would have further type-cast her in her Truth About Cats and Dogs and Bye, Bye Love roles. It also would have necessitated a change to the Andera character. I don't normally have a high opinion of Uma Thurman in the looks department, who was also in Truth About Cats and Dogs, but she pulls off the working-class 9 nicely and Annabeth Gish is every bit the "good solid seven and a half" as Willie describes her. The personalities written for these two characters make the actresses more attractive than their looks alone.