The Good Girl Review
by Eugene Novikov (eugenen AT wharton DOT upenn DOT edu)August 26th, 2002
The Good Girl (2002)
Reviewed by Eugene Novikov
http://www.ultimate-movie.com/
Starring Jennifer Aniston, Jake Gyllenhaal, John C. Reilly, Tim Blake Nelson, Mike White, John Carroll Lynch.
Directed by Miguel Arteta.
Rated R.
"If I were a woman, I'd be a slut. A lesbian slut."
I'm not sure exactly what to make of Miguel Arteta's The Good Girl. It's an extremely peculiar movie. I enjoyed it as entertainment -- it has some great performances, and a sharp script -- but try as I might, I couldn't make heads or tails of it thematically. There are no glaring omissions, or something that screams at you, but when the credits rolled, there was a sour taste in my mouth; something was not quite right. I'll try to elaborate, but the explanation will certainly take me into spoiler territory; proceed with caution.
The movie provides the first "real" role for Jennifer "Rachel" Aniston, and I think she may have had to patent the glum stare. She plays Justine Last, a 30-year-old married woman whose life is exaggeratedly Going Nowhere. She works the cosmetics counter at a Texas mini-department store called the Retail Rodeo. Her husband Phil (John C. Reilly) is a house painter who spends his spare time getting stoned with his buddy Bubba (Tim Blake Nelson, but come on: Bubba?). Justine and Phil's attempts to have a baby have been unsuccessful for years, and it has become evident that one of them is infertile; which one is uncertain.
A new employee (Jake Gyllenhaal) shows his face at the Retail Rodeo. He is a similarly glum-looking young man whose nametag proclaims "Holden"; he was named, he says, after the main character in "Catcher in the Rye." He catches her eye; consciously or not, she sees this forlorn kid as a potential way out, and she pretty eagerly jumps into an affair with him. Unfortunately, Holden doesn't just jump: like his self-imposed depressed writer identity would dictate, he leaps in with his entire soul, wanting to spend every waking moment with his new lover, and doing increasingly desperate things when the fearful Justine backs off.
I found myself willing to forgive the movie almost all of its transgressions, including its schizophrenic tonal variations, and with them the absurd exaggerations that go with its stabs at dark comedy. Every plot element is taken to its pathetic extreme, from the depressing lower-middle-class ambiance of the Retail Rodeo to the hysterical character of Holden, to John C. Reilly's deadbeat hubby, who vacillates from idiotic to creepy to lovable as the script commands. But Aniston, Reilly and Gyllenhaal so fully embody their characters, take the plunge so recklessly that I bought, or at least cheerfully accepted, every absurdity that director Miguel Arteta and writer Mike White (who also plays Corny, the Bible-thumping security guard) threw at me.
The black comedy does work on occasion, relieving the threat of Justine's tedium diffusing into the audience. It should be said that White has an ear for mean comedy, and the eccentric supporting cast made me laugh even when I realized that the movie was just putting pathetic specimens up on the screen and inviting us to gawk; the approximate equivalent of a bad Jerry Springer episode. And there is something about the phrase "fuck you very much" that inevitably gives me giggles.
The Good Girl is certainly proficient from a technical standpoint. What it tries to say is another story. Though no defender of the film would never admit this, The Good Girl bears a strong thematic resemblance to a movie like 28 Days: attractive, reasonably intelligent woman is thrown in with a ragtag group ranging from retarded to despicable to intolerable to dumb (in this case, apparently, said group is the entire state of Texas) and, despite initial resentment and rebellion, learns to love and respect them. Fine, but White and Arteta treat the people around Justine with the utmost contempt, spending the whole of the film's running time mocking them and then expecting us to believe that she has accepted them.
I liked individual moments in The Good Girl, but it takes an illogical approach to its storyline. I didn't much want to see another 28 Days either, but I would have preferred something that made emotional sense. It's not difficult to make fun; it's harder to reveal something while doing it.
Grade: C+
©2002 Eugene Novikov
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
