Very Good Girls

Emotionally complex. A great, realistic portrayal of the challenges of a troubled family life and of love and friendship. People make mistakes, and mistakes have to be forgiven, is what this movie seems to say. This movie will have you laughing, crying, suspicious, angry and happy until the very end. It didn't really seem to me that the girls actually made a pact. That would be my main complaint about the plot. They did talk about losing their virginity, but didn't really make any plans. Other than that, a really good movie.

"I just wanted to make you feel better. You liked him so much." Lilly (Fanning) and Gerri (Olsen) have been best friends for years and have just graduated high school. Both are on their way to college and neither want to go there as virgins. They decide to make a pact with each other that they will both lose it before they leave. Things are going along fine until they meet and start to like the same boy. This is a plot that has been done to death. Usually though the movie is a comedy and this is a drama. The one thing this does have going for it that the others don't is great actors. The acting alone is enough to keep this from becoming too cheesy or cookie-cutter like. The movie is very predictable and again is something you have seen a hundred times but Fanning and Olsen together are a great team. There are moments that make you cry and make you angry but overall this is a movie that will give you a good feeling. Overall a movie that who's plot has been done to death but the acting makes it feel fresh. A very good coming of age movie that teen girls should watch to show what is really important in life. I give this a high B+.

Lilly (Dakota Fanning) and Gerri (Elizabeth Olsen) are two best friends on their last summer before college. They meet David (Boyd Holbrook) selling ice cream at the beach who takes Lilly's picture as they walk away. Lilly catches her father cheating with one of his patients. Gerri is infatuated with David. Lilly also likes David but she can't tell Gerri. Lilly works on a ferry tour under the lecherous eyes of her boss Fitzsimmons (Peter Sarsgaard).

I want to like this movie for the two leads. There is just something unoriginal and outdated about this movie. In fact, I thought this is a period piece at first. The writing is so uninspired. Naomi Foner is the writer and director. I don't really have any big problems with her directions. It looks fine especially for her debut. The writing doesn't have anything compelling to say. The story meanders. There is a tired feel about everything in this movie. This should be a better coming-of-age movie for two skilled actresses. The story throws a lot of stuff on the screen but nothing actually sticks.

Yes, I have. We all have.

Two regurgitated caricatures of the stereotypical American teenage girl, Lily and Gerry are sooooooo different yet so alike. Both fall in love with the same part shady stalker, part brooding troubled artiste~ who wants to travel the world but his list of places to visit is, like, "Rome... (d-uh)Paris..." Daddy issues are, of course, played up wonderfully, because what is any worthy female teenage protagonist if not the product of her father's neglect? What possibly can one expect when the preppy rich teenage daughter of a straight-laced household made up of detached parents and siblings goes to her dad's office to ask him to get through with this patient already they're getting late for dinn- *gasp* and henceforth a series of incredibly stupid decisions are made by two girls we initially assume to be a lot smarter, wittier, braver and mature than they turn out to be. Every trick in the book for a deep and wholesome young-woman-coming-of-age film is not simply used, but abused in the most blatant schticky manner possible; I promise you, there is more than one cameo made by Sylvia Plath.

This film is a true example of lazy filmmaking in an industry where ~gratuitous-yet-modest~ sex scenes and summertime virginity pacts are more important than honest *portrayals* let alone discussions about teenage turmoil and female sexuality. Not even that awkwardly long shot of Dakota Fanning kinda-sorta running-jogging could redeem this movie.

Don't watch it. You've already seen it. And you've seen better.

I was expecting much more from this than I got when I finished watching it.

Being a long time fan of Dakota Fanning, as I suspect her performances are far above the average from girls her age and especially from her era, I was very excited to see her in a more 'mature' type of movie.

Well, I can't really say I was disappointed with the acting from the cast. I guess even that guy who played the street artist was o.k. but I was not satisfied with the development of the film. The movie was slow and then when it was almost finishing they threw it all at once and maybe it was a ~surprising~ ending once I wasn't expecting it but I was not pleased as I thought it rather silly, to be quite honest.

They were dealing with an adult theme at first which requires an adult reaction from all of the circumstances dealt in the movie and then at the very ending of it they just decided to wrap it all up with a rather silly reaction from the characters so us 'the public/audience' would be happy and content. Just typically clichè Hollywood ending while I would have preferred a million times a more realistic type of closing I guess.

And I just say so because this looks to me as an Indie film in which we generally get a more human response to human emotions played on screen (as well as in foreign films).

Of course, I know the old saying 'you can't always get what you want' but I think it's unfair to the public if they promote the movie a certain way and the final result is completely different from that. I mean that even in what concerns the trailer, the poster, every single advertising thing they do. It just has to be fair to their final public otherwise you can't even trust the filmmakers anymore because they are obviously just thinking about an easy way to cash in at your expenses.

I can't really give you more details because I'd have to tell you how it ends but watch it if you really feel like, it's NOT a complete waste of time because as I've said the characters are well portrayed by the whole cast and I can positively say now that I'll keep looking for more Dakota Fanning and Liz Olsen works in the future, they are far above the average and always deserving a much larger recognition for their roles in almost everything they do. 6/10