The Good Girl

Rating:
Summary: A serious character study sprinkled with some laughs
Review: Jennifer Aniston does a nice job inhabiting a bored woman who feels her life needs a desperate shake-up to keep her from going insane. The movie itself doesn't have anything brand new to say about such a situation, but it unspools the usual observations we're used to hearing about situations like this- mainly that an exciting, quick fix might not be the great remedy it initially appears to be- with subtlety and knowing humor. The DVD includes both a widescreen and fullscreen version of the film, plus a nice variety of extras.

Rating:
Summary: It's not a comedy
Review: Even though it stars Jennifer Aniston of the thankfully canceled, obnoxious, fake sitcom Friends and it's written by Mike White, who wrote Orange County this is not a comedy movie, a romantic movie or a chick flick. More of a bleak drama with the feel of an independent movie.

In some dead-end Texas town a supermarket checkout girl longs for a more exciting life, stares off into space with a disconnected look and moans a lot. In one of her stares she connects with Holden (Jake Gyllenhaal), a lonely, borderline insane young writer. A much needed affair breathes some life into her existence.

I wasn't entirely satisfied with the film overall. There wasn't a good explanation for Justine actions and decisions in the film's climax. Who's baby is she carrying? Why did she betray Holden? She's not a good girl. Not by far. So I'm assuming the title is meant to be an ironic one.

Anyone expecting Friends or Picture Perfect or Along Came Polly or Object of My Affection or any of the endless incarnations of Rachel Green be warned...it ain't that way.

Probably the most mature work Jennifer Aniston has done. But there's still an incomplete feeling to it all. Worth watching with no pre-judgments.

Rating:
Summary: I'd rather watch grass grow than to see this movie again.
Review: There's 94 minutes of my life I'm never going to get back.

Rating:
Summary: Disgusting and predictable
Review: First, an ongoing quibble: WHY, oh why, must movies take cheap shots at religious characters in hopes of a laugh? Does "The Good Girl" really intend us to think Justine implicating the only Christian in the movie (a stereotypically Bible-thumping one at that) in her adultery, and her husband and his best friend, with whom Justine actually HAS had sex, subsequently beating the crap out of the poor man, is funny?!

This movie seemed like a pathetic attempt at proving that Jennifer Aniston can act. Small-town girl with a boring life = NOT Rachel, and apparently that's all it took for Aniston to sign on. The movie accomplishes its goal in the sense that Aniston abandons all her Rachelian sprightliness for a single, forcedly dull facial expression, though her hair is still fashionably mussed (without the classic Texan perm and hairspray) and her clothing is cool-sloppy, a la the Gap.

By the time Aniston's character gets into bed with her husband's best friend to keep him quiet about her adulterous relationship with an underage, depressed clerk, the movie had already abandoned all hopes for good taste. And maybe the last scene, with Justine and her husband snuggling her new baby, is supposed to be heartwarming, but Justine's ignorance as to her child's paternity is disturbing instead. My sympathies, as much as they were engaged at all, lay with Justine's husband, the only even semi-innocent person in the movie, even if John Reilly's sad-faced cuckolds are getting a bit old. His willingness to trust and forgive Justine was slightly touching--certainly better than she deserved. Justine herself was easily ignorable, and that's the best that can be said for her.

Rating:
Summary: too smart for its own good, but also worthwhile
Review: Jennifer Anniston leads a carefully constructed yet deadening life as Justine in "The Good Girl". In one of those dead-end Texas towns (which I suspect exist largely on backlots in Hollywood) Justine works a dead-end job at a local department store, is married to a dead-end shlub (the latest in a long line of amiable, moron-losers played by John C. Reilly) and has nothing to look forward to. Bubba seems incapable of having that same perspective - largely because he spends most of his free time smoking pot with his best friend, Bubba (Tim Blake Nelson - late of "Holes" and "Minority Report"). Justine is that critical age, when people who had thought themselves young adults realize that middle-age is in sight, and they've got nothing to show for it. The world that had seemed a candy store to her when she was young, now looks like death row - bereft of possibilities. Things change with the arrival of Holden (Jake Gyllenhaal) a wide-eyed young dreamer who hates his life, but has ideas for changing things. Holden is a dreamer who patterns his life on "Catcher in the Rye" and the sense that he was meant for bigger things than their town allows. Sensing Justine's wanting spirit, Holden fixates on her, spurring feelings Justine as well. Much of the "Good Girl" follows Justine's dilemma - stick with her hated existence, or take a chance on a reconstructed one with Holden. Though soon realizing that Holden's sense of imagination means trouble, the dilemma only deepens, and Justine only pines harder for a new life that's increasingly unattainable. Never making a final decision, Justine verges in one direction, then the other - spurning, then giving into Holden. Unfortunately, Justine will also learn the consequences that her new relationship will have, and how the tottering of her carefully-balanced life affects the delicate illusions of life for those around her - Holden, her husband and even Bubba.

"The Good Girl" veers between being a dark comedy and a serious character study - sort of like "In the Bedroom" with gallows humor. The script pokes relentless fun at the small-town Texas characters (a compulsively fundamentalist security guard, a goth co-worker, and her dead-pan boss) but remains weighted down by Justine's abject life. At its worst, "Girl" is also infected by the same annoyingly arch and flighty personality that drives Holden - but our lives aren't as bleak as Justine's, so we're not as easily fooled, and we're left with a script that tries to be much smarter than any of its players. It's almost as if Holden wrote it. If "Girl" does succeed it's because the leads put more soul into their characters than the script does - with kudos to Reilly and Nelson. If Bubba and Justine's husband aren't exactly sympathetic characters, they are characters who manage to inject some surprise into their predictable roles. In short, this isn't a flick for a light-night at home, but it's one you won't soon forget.

Rating:
Summary: This is not a comedy!!!!
Review: The box describes this movie as a comedy. The front states "Sly, Comic and Touching". The back says "A Comedy of Winning Delicacy and Heart." Other mentions are "quirky comedy", "...comical results."
So imagine my surprise when it turns out not to be a comedy at all. It may be good as a drama, but since I bought it, and watched it expecting a comedy, that is what I reviewed it as. If anything it is kind of depressing. If you are looking for something funny, DO NOT buy this movie!