MOVIES . . . "CIRCLE OF FRIENDS"

In this coming-of-age comedy based on a Maeve Binchy novel, the cutest, nicest guy at Dublin's Trinity College (Chris O'Donnell) falls in love with a convent-educated country shopkeeper's daughter (Minnie Driver). To him, she's beautiful, no matter how ungainly she thinks she is. And she sees beyond his good looks to the insecure and awkward boy beneath the facade. "Their sweet, determined, gently understated struggle for fulfillment in a superstitiously conservative society makes this movie a quiet joy to behold," says TIME critic Richard Schickel.