The Good Girl
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Movie Reviews of The Good Girl
Movie Review: Proof that for Jennifer there will be life after FRIENDS!
Summary: 5 Stars
Jennifer Aniston proves here that she can move beyond her Friends persona. This is a quietly disturbing drama with a few moments of comedy thrown in. It defies any category, but that seems to be the writer's method. He was responsible for the equally disorienting CHUCK AND BUCK! Jennifer Aniston plays a bored cosmetics cashier in a small Texas town that dreams of something more, even if she has no idea what that MORE is. In a strange series of events she becomes living proof of "Be careful what you wish for." The cast is great, and the story is moving even if it moves at the slow pace of the town she is living in. Much has been made of the moral ambiguity of the film. I think it captures a poignant struggle for anybody when they realize the choices they have made and begin to question them. The ironic title adds to this ambiguity. It's a movie about a moral crossroads where a girl has to chose what is right and what is wrong for herself.
The DVD includes full-screen and widescreen versions of the film, a commentary with the director and screenplay author, a "selected scenes" commentary with Jennifer (which clocks in at 15 minutes maybe), gag reel (mostly people flubbing takes and laughing), deleted scenes, and the usual lot of trailers and photographs. Transfer is great! It looks better than when I saw it at the theatre, but remember it's a low budget film with a purposefully low budget look.
Movie Review: Anniston is a knockout, Reilly is amazing and Gyllenhaal, well, what can I say?
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw this film last night and was amazed at what I was seeing...I brilliant film (another oscar snub) with performances across the board that floored me. Aniston breaks away from her 'Rachel' persona and breaks into true oscar territory with her role here as Tina Last, a disgruntled wife of pot-head Phil (Played BRILLIANTLY by John C. Reilly who is one of my favorite actors ever) who works a dead-end job at some Texas bargain warehouse. She hates her job, hates her husband and most of all, in a lot of ways, hates herself for letting her life become what it is. She then meets Tom (Gyllenhaal in a brilliant performance...you think Brokeback was good) who thinks he's the incarnate of Holden from Catcher in the Rye. He hates his life and hates his parents and hates his job...and even himself. She falls for him mostly because they have so much in common. They start an affair that leads to Tina making some grave decisions that lead her to hate herself even more. The film is a great case-in-point that infidelity can ruin, not only a marriage and a family but a persons spirit and as Tina realizes you have to let go of some of the best things in your life to save your soul from the hurt your causes it to 'put on'...A great emotional story that had my wife in tears and my mind working...recomended to anyone with a family.Movie Review: 'Good' to the last scene
Summary: 5 Stars
'When you're a kid, you view life like a candy store.'One could think of this movie as a candy store, with it's various asthetic delights. The scenary, the actors, the script.
Let us not dwell on the magnificent display of talent Jennifer Aniston has in The Good Girl, with her slow way of speaking, her schlumpy body posture, her every being resonating the hopelessness her character, Justine, feels. It's Oscar worthy and the Academy made a huge mistake.
But let us focus instead on the stellar cast that are just pitch-perfect to every line of Mike White's screenplay. They round out the story perfectly, paralleling Justine's transformation to quiet brooding housewife/cashier to adultress.
The movie is also filmed beautifully, with vibrant scenes shifting throughout the various seasons, also mirroring the shift of Justine's character and integrity. It's like Phil( Justine's husband)'s line. "The wind. It's blowing different." Justine undergoes a radical change in character, making poor choices and being anything but good. But at the core, she is 'the good girl'..she does what is right. What is expected.
'The Good Girl' is at best, a dark comedy that deftly drives the idea home that the choices we make are everlasting, and they affect everyone around us.
Movie Review: The Good Girl Really Is
Summary: 5 Stars
Being a HUGE Jake Gyllenhaal fan, I was really stoked to see this film -- especially because of the added bonus of seeing John C. Riley and Tim Blake Nelson. And I am happy to report I was not in the least disappointed!At times I didn't know whether to laugh or gasp in shock because this movie really flips certain types of humor on its head (just like the creative team Arteta worked with did in the fabulous Chuck & Buck).
There are moments that all the characters face dark desperation and a bevy of choices that are none too appealing, but in the end, things work out in the best way for everyone (except for Gyllenhaall's Holden). I thought all the performances were top notch (pleasantly surprised by Jennifer Aniston as the heroine), the writing spectacular,and the casting superb. I walked away happy, sad, and pleasantly buzzing.
Along with me, the entire audience went on an intense but hysterical journey with these characters, and all left the theater talking animatedly about that journey. Arteta has produced another great flick -- can't wait for the next one! Oh, and Jake Gyllenhaal -- what can I say? That guy has the most intense eyes I've ever seen. He is one talented young man, and I am a life-long fan of whatever he does!
Movie Review: A clever peice of film...
Summary: 5 Stars
...and surely Aniston's best and most untypecast performance to date. Darkly humorous and unltimately examining the values which allow so many western lives to be wasted.
The characterisations are a set of peole deeply unfulfilled and either searching desperately for real connection and exploration of their true desires and talents or succumbing to their heavily ploughed roles as best they can. No one really achieves very much other than a dark realisation that what they are desperate to escape may infact be the most strongly available route in life open to them. Some make do and mend while others faulter in the horror of their findings.
Thought provoking, damningly witty and terribly sad, none of Aniston's usual sugary fair here, you will see not one visible trace of Rachael Green in her performance; a formula so many of her other films has exploited to her detriment.
Gyllenhaal displays strong signs of his emerging talent also but for me the darkly and explosively funny performance of Zooey Deschanel is the show stealer. Well worth a look, a long afterthought and analysis. It wont leave you feeling comfortable but will raise questions about the exploitations in modern and suppossed "free" lives.