Cool Girl

While the movie has some gaping holes -- I don't buy the Todd Sparrow character for a minute -- it's actually a decent film that I found myself enjoying more than I thought I would. I rented it mainly for Dominique Swain, who I think is underrated, but found myself engaged in the film. The most surprising thing -- who knew Tara Reid could actually act? And what happened? I'm not saying she's Meryl Streep in this, but really, I'd never have guessed she was capable of playing more than the blonde bimbo she's been doing since American Pie.

This movie is just sad. It's "My So-Called Life" without the depth or interesting characters. It's "Clueless" without the endearing charm, heart, or entertainment. And yet it's somehow undeniably totally derived from both. Swain herself not only actually physically resembles both Alicia Silverstone and Claire Danes (especially with the ruby-dyed hair), but her narration even seems to fall halfway in between "Clueless"' poignant perkiness and "My So Called Life's" dark brooding. The hitch is that both can't possibly be done properly at the same time, and "Girl" is shining proof of that. This movie is so directionless and muddled that I'm kind of upset I bothered to watch it. It attempts to tackle just about every possible teen issue it can, which does not help it either. No scene in the movie is longer than a minute and a half, and not one of the million or so tangent plot lines ever becomes fully developed. And not one of the multitude of characters is ever deveolped even enough for the audience to care about them in the least. And on top of that, the movie is tremendously out of touch. The characters are all one dimensional stereotypical representations that some studio exec thinks are what "real" teens are like. This whole movie feels so condensed and confused that I honestly couldn't possibly summarize the plot. I think it has something to do with this chick having a crush, but the movie goes so far off the path trying to be an extra-glossy after-school special that it completely self-destructs. It's not good in the beginning and it only gets more embarassing as the movie reaches its absurd conclusions (which do not provide any character resolution or moral to any of the stories anyway). Pretty sad crap.

I didn't read the book & didn't walk in with preconceived notions. Basically a coming of age film about a girl attracted to a fledgling rock star and she falls into the "groupie" mindset & lifestyle for a bit. Nothing epic but everyone plays their part well & it's an entertaining movie.

It's not a classic by any means, but it's a decent coming of age story about a young girl, with evolution and maturity. Lot of actors in here that went on to bigger things. Dominique Swain in the 90s was a precious wonder. You either knew about her or you didn't, and if you did, you've already seen this movie, like I have. She made the movie good. She has a quality about her that even when she's playing a naive dorky girl, you identify with her. She has presence even though she's not the best actress. She's watchable. The movie runs into teen clichés but it's still a good watch.

I watched this movie thinking "hey, there are some good actors in this, so it might be good". yeah right, i was totally wrong about that. This movie is about a teenaged girl who really, really, wants to have sex. She thinks that having sex will make her a woman. What she really wants is to have sex with a guy in a band who she idolizes and she just happens to know his sister. She can't really have him so she just loses her virginity to a guy who she deems as being "ugly" and "disgusting" yet, the actor playing him is pretty goodlooking and the guy is pretty nice to her. oh yeah, it gets worse. After this, she finally gets to have sex with the guy in the band, and so she becomes his groupie. Going around with him on his tour and having sex with him whenever possible including in a barn. After all this, she realizes that she didn't need to have sex to be a woman (duh!). The most annoying part is at the end when one of her friends says to her "You are so strong, I wish I could be more like you". what? so during this movie, we were actually supposed to like the main character? She is a doofus. Really, this movie is just a glorified, and more dramatic version of Ammerican Pie. It's all about sex, sex, and sex except the main character isnt as likeable.