The Good Girl is a powerful drama about a
woman trapped in a desolate and depressing small town life. She
tries to find an inner-freedom and be eternally happy for the
things she has; but in reality she finds herself suffocating.
There is nothing special about this film; but the tremendous
impact that it shoves onto you is so gigantic, that you can’t
help but support the characters thoughts, hopes, and dreams. The
sense of emotional captivity the picture gives off is
awe-inspiring once you think about it. The acting in this is
similar to that of In the Bedroom; the performances
are so well done you feel like your watching reality unfold,
just on a screen. For such a low budget, this was an incredible
achievement. The Good Girl is mind-blowing in all
areas of the game.
Jennifer Anniston offered one of the
best performances of the year along with fabulous narration. The
way she held her efforts steady throughout the whole movie and
didn’t change any of her characters values or personality traits
during the course of shooting it was groundbreaking. Usually
there are tiny glitches in an actors’ performance because of
their mood changes off-set on a day-to-day basis; since it takes
at least a month to shoot a feature length film. She was able to
consistently maintain the type of homeostasis that a person
lives by in such an emotionally shaky town during the whole
picture. I have never watched an episode of “Friends” in my
life; but I might start to soon if she’s this good all the time;
she certainly fit this role perfectly, against many odds.
I’m not sure why there is an all of
the sudden need for Jake Gyllenhaal to be in peoples’ movies,
but he was very good in this movie given the challenging role he
was presented with. He’s in Moonlight Mile,
Lovely and Amazing, and this; three very critically
acclaimed films. Here he plays the character of Holden, a guy
that Justine (Anniston)
has a “small” affair with; and assumes that she is similar to
him in every way. He does feel constrained because of the
small-town life, and hates everyone on the planet like she. But,
he is insane and wants sex a little too much, unlike her.
Overall he was outstanding regardless of his characters odd-ball
type, as did everyone else in the cast.
I like the original score composed for
the use of this film. For an unknown reason, the music felt like
my only retreat from the gloomy plot, its most likely intention.
I actually had fun walking out of them theatre to its catchy
beat and classical guitar riffs! I don’t mean to sound
happy-go-luck or anything but I did; and it surprised me. The
only other soundtrack I liked to this extent in two-thousand-two
was the one created by Thomas Newman for The Road to
Perdition. Both this and that contained extremely strong
pieces.
The Good Girl is
astonishingly powerful. Like Blue Crush I was not
enticed into seeing it by the trailers, but I took the chance
and enjoyed it anyways. The acting is “Grade-A”, the soundtrack
fits the mood of the picture extremely well, and the director
took advantage of his low budget. This film has tremendous Oscar
potential and shall be remembered in the race. At the moment,
this is the best example of wonderful filmmaking that comes to
mind.
-Danny, Bucket Reviews