| ..
|
rented
any good movies lately?
jump
to the
boards
and recommend it.
|
copyright ©1999-2003
DigsMagazine.com.
|
Plot synopsis
Day
after day, Justine plods through her dreary job as the cosmetics girl at
the Retail Rodeo, a dismal discount department store of the Walmart/Kmart
variety. Each evening, she returns home to find her husband Phil and his
buddy Bubba stoned on her couch, laughing about inanities. She walks
around work in a half-sleep stupor to try and forget about how much she
hates everyone and everything around her; in bed at night, with her
oblivious husband sleeping soundly beside her, she lies with her back
towards him, eyes wide open and mind reeling with the immensity of how
much she loathes her dull, meaningless life. Escape seems so far a
stretch from reality that she’s not even sure what to fantasize about
anymore … until one day, she notices the new boy working the cash
register at the Retail Rodeo. He’s lost in a tattered old paperback
– The Catcher in the Rye – and there’s something about the
way he keeps to himself, puts up a defensive keep-away kind of posture,
that intrigues Justine. His nametag, naturally, reads Holden (it’s a
name he adopted for himself), and when Holden explains to Justine that
his favorite book is about a kid who’s pissed off at the hypocrisy of
the world around him, an instant connection is forged. The two begin
sharing lunch breaks, as well as rides home from work (Holden has no
car: Justine has to drop him off at home, where he lives with his
parents), Soon, the friendship becomes a full-fledged affair, despite
the fact that he’s an alcoholic college drop-out that’s barely out
of his teens, and she’s a tired thirty-year-old who’s been a “good
girl” all her life.
Review
Jennifer
Aniston isn’t Rachel. Maybe this seems like a surprise, given the fact
that she’s acted like her famous Friends character in just
about every movie that she’s ever appeared in – pretty, stylish, a
little self-involved perhaps, but ultimately, a nice girl. So it’s
understandable if the sight of Aniston’s picture-perfect face gracing
the cover of The Good Girl is enough to make you think that this
is exactly the kind of fluffy romantic comedy that you make an active
effort to avoid. But trust me, you’d be wrong. See, The Good Girl
is brought to you by Miguel Arteta and Mike White, the same team that
created the very idiosyncratic, highly discomfiting, deeply dark comedy Chuck
and Buck. And if that’s not enough indie cool cred for you,
there’s the presence of the always-wonderful John C. Reilly, as
Justine’s husband Phil, and scruffy-faced, soulful-eyed, geek-chic
hipster du jour, Jake Gyllenhaal, doing a creepier version of what’s
essentially the same role that he played so well in Donnie
Darko, and again in Lovely
and Amazing. The big surprise, though, is that Aniston is
completely believable as a lonely small-town Texas wife, barely hiding
her frustrations behind a stiff walk, tight-lipped semi-smile and weary
eyes. It’s a quiet, spare, and wonderfully internalized performance,
and it’s a big credit to Aniston that she never resorts to her usual
brand of ditzy charm to make us love Justine. It’s not that
Justine’s unsympathetic – anyone who’s ever felt deeply stuck in a
rut will feel some level connection to Justine’s plight – but
she’s certainly not generous, or lovely, or bright, or kind, or any of
the other qualities one normally associates with goodness. Instead
she’s just an ordinary girl, making some questionable moral decisions
in the course of trying to do something extraordinary with her life. In
the end, it’s next-to-impossible to apply a label as simple as
“good” or “bad” to any of the characters in the movie.
Deftly treading the line between comedy and drama, pathos and parody, The
Good Girl shows that what makes the world interesting is that it
isn’t defined by boring black and white extremes, but that great murky
gray area in between.
—reviewed
by Yee-Fan Sun
--------------------------->
lounge . nourish
. host .
laze
. home .
|
