Rating: Summary: Don't Bother Review: I thought this movie was awful. I like Jennifer Aniston, but the story stunk, the characters were seedy. ick. Don't Bother.
Rating: Summary: Transgression Review: I frequently experience the one-hour mark in a film as the threshold of disinterest. Something about the writing often loses coherence after an hour or so. The Good Girl firmly held my interest for just about that long. Jennifer Aniston, in particular, is so compelling at first that it is easy to become lost inside your wish to continue getting to know her indefinitely. She is a women full of longing and despair for whom everything is ceasing to matter. Suddenly there is another soul within her reach whom she fantasizes may share her sense of displacement and ennui. A boy, really, just on the verge of finding out that craving for drugs and alcohol is nothing compared to the extreme states desire for a women can produce. The two are each in their own way existentially adrift and trying their best to cope with the increasing sense of alienation they feel. Desire fulfilled is initially highly pleasurable for the lovers and they believe they are falling in love. But Justine is found out (she is married) as they pursue an almost impossibly stupid liaison at a local hotel. This is the moment the narrative fails for me. All the tension so carefully cultivated to this critical juncture is dissipated in a flash. Action takes over. Too bad. I wish the director might have had the courage to explore more fully what was happening between Justine and Holden (her young partner in crime) as they explode out of their castings and give life to passion and a child. But what certainly rings true in The Good Girl is that in too many instances passion when ignited is fueled by the reality that someone is going to get fried for having wantonly entered into the territory of transgression. I think here of Damage (directed by Louis Malle) where the true price of transgression is calculated viscerally during every moment of that story. In The Good Girl a believable confrontation with the inevitability of doom is forsaken, sacrificed to contrived action with the need for a neat resolution stealing the subtle resonances, created during early story development, at every turn. John C. Reilly gives a self-less performance of great subtly as Aniston's cuckolded husband in The Good Girl. And Jake Gyllenhaal has moments of brilliance in his role as Aniston's lover. But primarily it is Jennifer Aniston's work which carries the storyline and holds our attention throughout this effort. She is a good girl with a naughty streak. Aren't we all?
Rating: Summary: Comedy? Review: I was disappointed in the movie. It was billed "A Comedy of Winning Delicacy and Heart". There was nothing comical about it. I expected something more like Picture Perfect with Jennifer Aniston...that is a comedy. I lost interest in the middle of the movie. I watched it to the end but am sorry that I bought it.
Rating: Summary: Very Worthwhile Film Review: Jennifer Aniston breaks out of her "Friends" persona to play a bored housewife desperately trying to make a change in her life. Aniston totally transforms herself to play this role. Not just in terms of adopting a southern accent, but also in terms of body language. Jennifer moves and behaves in ways that we have never seen her before and should be commended for it. Another notable aspect of her performance is her ability to get the audience to root for her despite some questionable choices her character makes in the film. She deservedly got an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Female Lead.The film is peppered with a host of interesting characters as a result of Mike White's off beat screenplay. He's written some very funny lines here. Tim Blake Nelson, who plays "Bubba" in the film, get one of the bigger laughs with the line, "I want to be a slut. A lesbian slut." Another one comes after "Justine" (Aniston) when she asks Jake Gyllenhaal's character why his parents call him "Tom" instead of "Holden," that she knows him by. You'll have to see the film for that one. There some intriguing plot developments that take the viewer on an unpredictable ride to the finish. Without giving away the ending, I'll just say that it is not a "Hollywood" one. This may not sit well with the crowd that likes formulaic "by the book" stories. Overall, "The Good Girl" is a film for someone looking for something off beat, off center and very funny.
Rating: Summary: Mike White at his best Review: If you like Mike White's work (screenwriter), you will love and "get" this. If you don't, you won't. The reviewers that do not like this movie, to my mind, just don't get it, which is fine. It will not be to everyone's taste. I don't know if this is a true independent film or not, but is it surely in the spirit of the best independent films. It is dark, ironic, unsettling. Very original, uncliched. I have seen it about four times now, counting the voice over commentaries, and have gotten more out of it each time. Jennifer Anniston is fabulous. As others have said, it is a career changing role. I have not been a big JA fan, but I am now. Nuanced. Subtle. Disarming. Bravo. Virtually every performance is outstanding.
Rating: Summary: Awful Review: I think Jennifer Aniston is a great actress but this movie doesn't do her justice. I thought I was going to be watching a great movie and was very disappointed to find out how boring and uneventful the whole movie was. There was absolutely nothing good about this movie and anyone wanting to buy it I would have to say if you really want to watch the movie rent it or borrow it from somebody before you waste your money!!!
Rating: Summary: really...really bad Review: I was expecting a lot more from this movie. It has no happy ending at all and you end up hating each and every single one of the characters. It's about a 30 year old woman working at a dead end job with a loser, pot smoking, husband who doesn't treat her right and she falls in love with the guy at work. She ends up pregnant and instead of telling her pot smoking husband that it's over she lets him believe he is the father of the baby. Why in the world would she want him to raise her child? She found her true love with the guy at work who worships the ground she walks on. When she dumps him he ends up dead and she couldn't care less. She continues to work at the job she hates, stays married to the drug addicted husband and raises the dead guy's baby with him. That's the ending. What the...?
Rating: Summary: very good Review: I watched this movie once and all I could think of was rachel green is having a bad day. Then I watched it again and really enjoyed it (because I had to get friends out of my mind). This movie is about a woman named justine (Jennifer Aniston) she's married with a dead end job. She wants something to happen something to change. That's when she gets together with a younger guy named holden. This movie is sad, moody, good and well acted. Put on some popcorn and call all your girlfriends over for this one.
Rating: Summary: good actress-bad movie Review: I am sure this movie was meant to be deep on some level, but it was horrible, I regret buying it. I think Jennifer Aniston is a phenomenal actress, but even she couldn't help this movie.It was way too slow, the main actress brought all of her problems on to herself, which is never addressed. And she walks away scott-free. Completely predictable, you wind up shaking your head the whole time in disbelief/disgust. Plus it is utterly anticlimatic, it is slow through the whole movie!She never even tries to talk to her "ho-hum" husband in the movie, just goes and messes around, with someone else who wasnt all that great either. I would rather use this DVD as a drink coaster.
Rating: Summary: "The Best Movie Of The Year" Gone Wrong Review: I bought this movie expecting to have a great time watching it. The reviews plastered on the front cover rave about it, so I expected a great film. What I got was the complete opposite. This movie appalled me. The fact that it was called "The Best Movie Of The Year" just goes to show that some of the movie critics have no idea what they are talking about. The accents were insulting and the plot line took unnecessary turns that were, at their best, grotesque. I would not recommend this movie to anyone and if, for some twisted reason, you're looking for a copy of it on DVD, you can have mine.
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