Algunas chicas

Gabriella D'Arc (Jennifer Connelly) left the semester for her sick granny and hasn't returned. Michael (Patrick Dempsey) is overjoyed to be invited to meet her family in Quebec City for her birthday over Christmas. Her eccentric atheist father writes in the nude. There are her sisters Simone and Irenka. Irenka's boyfriend is handyman Nick. They're joined by Father Walter, Gabby's religious mother's former love. Michael is discombobulated after quickly insulting Gabby's mom by expressing sympathy and Gabby telling him that, "I'm not in love with you anymore." It's a week of strange family drama. Granny is delusional and thinks that he is her husband Michael.

This is a cold movie and I don't mean the snowy Quebec City. Jennifer Connelly is an enchanting mercurial presence. I don't like her character in this movie. Patrick Dempsey is a pathetic puppy chasing after her. While I don't like his character either, I certainly understand him. Damn, the girl is hot, but most of this movie leaves me cold. It's definitely not actually funny. It's the unknowable nature of women and it leaves me unsatisfied.

This is one of my all-time favorite films. It was too subtle and philosophical to make it in the mainstream. The various 'love' themes between sisters, mothers and daughters, husband and wife are all beautiful. But the love between the boy and old woman - a love that spans lives and time - goes beyond touching; it's eternal and amazing. Other than the Granny's accent being Russian and not French, I found the movie flawless! Wish it came in DVD!

Love is in the air. Be it true love or merely puppy love, it is ever-present throughout the film, Some Girls. Starring both Patrick Dempsey, as Michael, and Jennifer Connelly, as Gaby, this movie contains something for everyone, depending on how insightful the viewer chooses to be. It can be taken as simply a hilarious comedy or a genuinely profound portrayal of love and human nature; the viewer is given this choice.

As a comedy, Some Girls plays on Dempsey's vulnerabilities, or in other words, the fact that he is a teenage male that has yet to figure out women. Michael, continually rejected by his quondam love, Gaby, is repeatedly taken advantage of by Connelly's on-screen sisters, Irenka and Simone, and he inadvertently falls in love with Granny. Dempsey's naivety gets him into a countless number of awkward situations with the women of the D'Arc family, such as winding up in bed with them and getting caught in the nude, which adds to the humor of the movie.

The love that Michael and Granny feel for each other is a transition between the comical and the symbolic sides of this film. In the wonderfully set-up scene where Michael undresses Granny, the viewers start to feel uncomfortable when they realize that Granny isn't going to be innocently nude. She enjoys the attention, and because this type of sexual encounter is not socially accepted, it causes unease. Due to the discomfort that this scene causes in the viewer, it becomes humorous that this teenage boy is undressing this old woman who is quickly falling for him. However, it is not humor alone that is at work here. This scene sets up the rest of the movie and allows for true love to blossom.

Although Michael went to Quebec to see his "love", Gaby, he fell in love with the last person that he expected, or even desired to fall in love with: Granny. The two of them became unbelievably close during the film and developed a love deeper than the one that he had only imagined forming between him and Gaby. There love was true love, despite the fact that Dempsey tried to push it aside at the very beginning. However, Michael let up his guard, letting himself fall madly and deeply in love with Granny, the woman he could never have due to both society and mortality.

For the movie aficionado who loves symbolism, Some Girls is a wonderful choice of movies. It is a film that can be watched over and over again and something new will occur to the viewer each and every time that it is watched. The viewer may discover what Botticelli's Three Graces, who appear several times during the film, have to do with the three D'Arc sisters or maybe why Beowulf jumped out of the window with the clock in his mouth. He or she may realize why the unicorn tapestry covers Gaby's bedroom door or why the girls' father feels that he must write in the nude. The viewer may realize that the film both begins and ends with water and why that fact is so important. In order to appreciate these things, however, the movie must be watched and it must be watched more than once.

Some Girls is truly a structural masterpiece. It appears as if in every scene, there is some hidden symbol, or underlying idea, that makes the film multifaceted instead of just straightforward and simple to understand. The details make the film an extraordinary one instead of just an ordinary one. The flashback scene exemplifies the structural merit better than any other scene. It is perfectly choreographed, with the time being split between the car scene and the window-closing scene well enough to keep the viewer on the edge of his or her seat. The flashback went from the peacefulness of the window closing to the frenzied ride to the hospital without falter. Another wonderful scene that demonstrates the film's magnificent structure is the scene in which Michael and Granny are alone in the old abandoned house. Nothing whatsoever prepares the viewer for what is about to come, and it is better left that way. It merely shows love in its purest form.

In the same way that Michael receives something that he didn't expect from going to Quebec, the viewer receives something that he or she probably doesn't expect from the movie. Michael learns what love is all about and the viewer learns what great films are made of. By the end of the movie, Michael has changed for the better. He has matured, learned a little about women, fallen in love, and maybe even gained some religion from his experiences. He left the three women of the D'Arc family, and moved on to the woman of the Lumiere family. By doing this, he moved from the darkness to the light, as their surnames symbolically imply. Hopefully, the viewer can do the same if they take the time to watch this exquisite film.

France is famed for its romantics, but Quebec? In the winter? Well, perhaps it should be. A love-struck college student named Michael (Dempsey) has too many naive theories about women. Then he is invited, by his mysterious girlfriend Gabbie (Connelly) to visit her family over Christmas, in Quebec. Ah ha, he thinks; major progress. The first thing Gabbie tells Michael in Quebec, however, is that she no longer loves him. Yet, she wants him to stay for the holidays. The bewildered Michael is then introduced to Gabbie's truly bizarre family, including Gabbie's father (Gregory), a writer who can work effectively only in the nude; a priest (Milette) who is hopelessly in love with Gabbie's over-protective mother (Balkan); Gabbie's sensual sister Irenka (Kelley) and her boorish boyfriend (Edwards); and a clock-stealing sheepdog, among others.

Poor Michael continues to try to woo Gabbie, and almost succeeds, but is mightily distracted by Irenka and her younger sister, Simone (Greenfield). Then he meets Granny (Kedrova), the crazed and dying matriarch, who mistakes Michael for her long-dead husband of the same name. The film shifts tone as Michael discovers that love and sex need not be the same thing. The final lines of the movie sum it up well, as Michael muses that all his theories about women are bulls**t.

The few professional critics who saw this film gave it very low marks, and certainly there were things to criticize. The lead actors (Demsey, Connelly) were sometimes unconvincing, and the plot was erratic and almost non-existent. These were minor flaws, however, in an otherwise fascinating film. For the most part, the acting was enjoyable, the character development was fascinating, and the film filled with unexpected humor. The sexual tension was kept high, with very little actual sex, and the ending was satisfying.

American college student Patrick Dempsey travels to beautiful Quebec City to spend Christmas with girlfriend Jennifer Connelly, who informs him upon arrival that she's no longer in love with him. Spending the vacation with her eccentric family -- including nudist/Pascal expert Andre Gregory, staunch Catholic Florinda Balkan and the luscious Sheila Kelley -- teach him a thing or two about the mysteries of life, love and women.

Cleverly written and gorgeously mounted -- wait til you see that house -- "Some Girls" is the kind of offbeat and eccentric comedy that the French often do so well but Americans rarely attempt. Little-seen upon its initial release, the film has developed a well-deserved cult following.