| THE GOOD GIRL |
 2002
- UK / USA
Director: Miguel Arteta - Reviewed by Linda 
Poor Jennifer Aniston. She walks through most of The Good Girl with her face blankly sad, her brow pinched in a furrow, and her gait a defeated shuffle. Only once or twice do you see her dynamite smile, reminding you that she is in the pantheon of our pop culture's Beautiful People. And let's give credit where credit is due: Aniston's portrayal of the character of Justine *does* makes you forget her alter-ego of Rachel-from-Friends. She proves, once again, that after Friends is over, only the women will be left standing with movie careers.
From the folks who brought us the ultra-creepy best-friend-obsession love story Chuck & Buck, comes the equally dark (and uncomfortably funny) The Good Girl. We meet Justine, a 30-ish woman with a big lug of a husband (the always great John C. Reilly), who hangs out on the couch smoking pot with his friend Bubba (Tim Blake Nelson, whose lightbulb is only slightly brighter than his character Delmar in O Brother). Justine's is in a dead-end retail job at the Retail Rodeo (classic!) in a dead-end Texas town. Enter a cute and brooding new cashier (the alterna-IT-boy Jake Gyllenhaal), who with his "I'm a writer!" pseudo-intellectual declarations, and his insistence on being called "Holden" (after, yes, The Catcher in the Rye), makes the daily Rodeo a little more tolerable. Despite (or because of) the age difference (Holden is a 22-year-old pup), they start a store room affair.... And with the affair, Justine is suddenly faced with the dilemma: is her stable, if boring life, worth shaking up for her new idealistic young lover? Or should she be a "good girl" and stop everything before all gets out of hand? (You bet, things get out of hand.) The Good Girl is a black comedy at its blackest. Or should I say bleakest. There are no happy resolutions, only people settling for second best. The sharp screenplay is funny, but in a wince-and-squirm way. The acting is top-notch, with particular kudos to scene stealers Tim Blake Nelson as Bubba, and Zooey Deschanel as a disgruntled and rolling-her-eyes-ironic cashier at the Rodeo. The pacing is deliberate, and occasionally a little sluggish, like watching a car accident in slow motion... you pretty much figure out what is going to happen about halfway through, but continue watching out of squinted eyes anyway. This is not a perky movie, nor a zippy one. You'll will most likely leave the theater with your chuckles replaced by a defeated sigh of uncomfortable recognition—as your shoulders slump like Justine's, and you shuffle home to your own menial life. Nothing bleak about that, no siree. Sigh. |
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