On a dark and unstormy night, four young girls gather round a small fire in the woods for a special bonding ritual. With their sweet faces illuminated by the firelight, the girls cut their palms and exchange blood, then raise their voices in unison: “Loyalty forever! Ya-Ya!” Sparks fly up, the camera pulls out, and yet another ensemble chick flick is born.

Based on Rebecca Wells' popular novels, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Little Altars Everywhere, Callie Khouri's film traces the episodic lives of these girls, sort of. Actually, the movie uses the trajectory of one girl, group leader Vivi (who grows up to be Ellen Burstyn), to make mundane observations about the ways that girls become women; betray, support and inspire one another; and, in the end, make sense of life's chaos. It doesn't help that the Sisters -- Vivi, Teensy (Fionnula Flanagan), Necie (Shirley Knight) and Caro (Maggie Smith) -- are grandly "Southern." While this grants them a certain cinematic "tradition" (Steel Magnolias comes to mind) and historical context (racism, class and gender anxieties, here rendered through numerous flashbacks), it also tends to make them histrionic and eccentric stereotypes.

The film finds its requisite plot-starting crisis in Vivi's turbulent relationship with her daughter, Sidda (Sandra Bullock). A playwright of some renown, Sidda is the subject of a Time profile mentioning her troubled childhood (including mom's alcoholism, physical abuse, abandonment and basic cantankerousness) as a possible source for her art. While it's clear that Vivi and Sidda have spent years scrapping and/or not talking to one another, the article enrages Vivi. In chick-flick-land, this is what you call standard-issue-major-catastrophe-leading-to-catharsis-some-90-minutes-down-the-road.

When it becomes apparent that Sidda and Vivi will not reconcile on their own, Vivi's meddling childhood friends, the Ya-Yas, intervene. They make a deal with Sidda's fiance, Connor (Angus MacFadyen), who agrees to let them slip Sidda a roofie and kidnap her from NYC back to Louisiana. (For some reason, the airline attendants allow them to transport an unconscious woman). Connor rationalizes that Sidda must get over her commitment phobia so they can be married, but really, you have to wonder about a husband-to-be who would consent to such treachery rather than engaging in, say, a conversation.

But such hijinks are par for the Ya-Ya course, so it appears that hapless Connor just has to go along. This makes him a prime candidate to replicate the mostly melancholy career of Shep Walker (James Garner, looking patient), Vivi's husband, so puppy-doggishly dedicated to her, despite all kinds of difficulties, that he has agreed to sleep down the hall for most of their marriage. Apparently, menfolk need only orbit the Sisterhood, occasionally providing material sustenance but never participating in their emotional lives.

Just so, Connor cools his heels back in New York, appearing in occasional, brief phone-call scenes, while Sidda undergoes a barrage of storytelling. And oh lordy, the Sisters have so much to unload. Their early memories are full of admiration for the brilliant Vivi (here played by Caitlin Wachs), for her courage and spunk. The key flashback in this segment takes place during their trip to Atlanta for the premiere of Gone With the Wind, in 1939. Here they witness their hosts' racist cruelty directed toward Vivi's black maid, Willetta (Leslie Silva), who has come to serve the girls on the trip; while all the Ya-Yas are suitably horrified by this spectacle, Vivi speaks up and acts out, which apparently means a lot to her friends. (There's no sign what it might mean for Willetta, who, after serving as the occasion for the girls' enlightenment, has little to do in the rest of the film except serve.)

Sidda is not so impressed by this story either, and so the Sisters press on, showing her a carefully maintained Ya-Ya scrapbook, through which the film might launch into a series of flashbacks featuring Ashley Judd as Vivi (she's less pert than usual, which is good). As Sidda leafs through the scrapbook, she somehow comes to understand Vivi's evolving insanity and alcoholism, so dark a secret that, even though her children endure her frighteningly erratic behavior for years, no one ever has seen fit to discuss it with them. (It is also odd that Sidda's younger siblings are not involved in this days-long recovery effort -- there's not much mention of how damaged they may be.)

In between flashbacks, the present-time versions of the Sisters group and regroup, initially hiding Sidda's visit, then, finally, confronting Vivi with the truth, which is that she must take responsibility for screwing up her daughter's life, but not really, because, well, she is mentally ill. And Sidda, good daughter in spite of herself, must forgive her mama for being imperfect and herself for being a lot like her mama, but not insane. The resolution is neatly symbolic, especially the final, feel-good Ashley Judd scene, where she takes young Sidda for a plane ride, so she can "face" her fears. It's a pretty coda for Vivi's more appalling Blanche DuBoisian agitations.