Some Girl

Wow! I am so impressed by this movie! I really recognized myself in it. It really shows how most girls thinks and what we have to go thru today. About trying to find the love of your life, and about unanswered love. It's hard to describe this movie, but I promise you, you WILL recognize yourself.

One commentator below asks: "At what point did Chad fall out of love w/ Claire? I feel like I missed something...though I rewound that part of the movie a few times."

To me that was glaringly obvious. When Claire went to his house after their second get together because he didn't follow his "I'll call you later" with a call later that night, or "even" by the next afternoon. She was worried because he had ended their perfectly warm chat in her living room without sex by saying he had to shoot a commercial the next day, and wanted to be fully rested and focused. Bad move Claire, made much worse by her failing to in any way dissipate the message of heavy neediness, after he explained he hadn't called yet "because Claire, I only got up about an hour ago." Her face and whole being conveyed a desperate longing for him -- after sex once, and two get-togethers. (Try reversing the shoe girrrls, when a guy is that far ahead of you. Kinda sends the message that he/she knows something you hadn't yet figured out about how much he/she is really worth to others, doesn't it?)

Actually, she started to be in trouble when she apologized for her brother being rude to Chad, and then backed down completely when he responded "was he"?, with a "Well … maybe not." The point isn't being more careful. The point is trying less hard to please. Guys of course fall into the same trap all the time, and if anything, quite a bit more often. (Of course that's what a lot of girrlz want -- with their safe, steady, settle down choice in a guy, anyway. But it's no way to sweep someone off her / his feet.)

The other possibility of course was that Chad was playing a serial seduction game from the get go -- of the full mind as well as body capture variety -- with no intention of it ever lasting regardless of how sypatico they turned out to be. I suspect however that he was always open to the possibility -- without coming close to feeling the sort of desperation that it had to be her, that she did. Other romance minded girls are real easy to find when you've got the looks, skillz and the sort of career that Chad has. (Hell, they're pretty easy to find as well when you've just got the magnetism and skillz, without looks, plus something going on career and future wise.)

Of course this is exactly the position which highly attractive girls with some ability to play the game are in -- and a far higher proportion of girls are in something like this position than guys are. (At least that is while both are in their twenties. It starts reversing fast for those still or once again single in their thirties.)

For those who might be inclined to agree with April's (of all people's) several times repeated warnings that "guys like Chad are the worst" (most dangerous), consider this. Is meaningless sex really better while you are looking for the one that will last? Isn't a much fuller connection, though painful to lose for the one who wanted it to continue, a much richer and more expanding experience -- and much more of a trial run at finding the lasting thing?

In the end a lot of the problem is the simple fact that Claire wasn't really in Chad's league (looks, personality or career wise) -- just as Neal, who might have otherwise been a personality natural for Claire, wasn't really in Claire's league. Yeah, Claire could have delayed the falling apart moment by playing the game smarter. But it would have come apart anyway so long as beneath it all she was so needy. She's not going to get a guy who isn't relationship desperate, probably because he isn't getting much sex (guys being different from girls), until she changes that -- though by the end of the movie it seemed an indelible part of her character to me. Frankly, I think marriage to her, though it might well start out full of passion, lovely romance, and beautiful mutual giving, would before long end up a nightmare. In fact the pyrotechnics at the end of the movie telescope that future likelihood.

She just doesn't have enough else going on in her life, or any apparent drive to make other things go on. She wants to live off her committed partner's vital life force. Her sort of full life (and not just bedroom and occasional emotional) submission may be initially seductive, but it tends to turn to poison -- pretty quickly in today's social climate. She seems the type who would always be consuming much energy jealously patrolling her partner's life with bee-bee guns and worse, and very possibly slipping into a bottle or something else as the poison grew stronger. She'd be enough to drive almost any guy to adultery -- while, ironically, monogamous romantic commitment is what she herself wants most.

Let me begin by saying that maybe I'm too old (37) to be part of this movie's intended demographic. That being said – It's also the case that I usually enjoy these ensemble-cast stories.

In this case the premise (some early twenty-somethings struggling with their relationships, or lack thereof) is valid and enjoyable, with some outstanding performances by Marissa Ribisi (Claire), Giovanni Ribisi (Jason), and Juliette Lewis (April). Unfortunately the remainder of the cast of characters suffers from such lack of development that I often felt they were more of a distraction to the plot than an addition.

Marissa Ribisi is stunningly beautiful with her porcelain skin and blazing red hair. She also gives a wonderful performance, demonstrating her wide range of talents, even pulling off a believable drunk (no easy feat). Juliette Lewis gives a strong performance, of course, to a character that remains fairly one dimensional until near the movie's conclusion. Giovanni Ribisi gives a star performance in a supporting role as the quirky brother to the main character.

The production values are outstanding, with some great cinematography and a well-chosen soundtrack. Overall this film serves to further expose Marissa Ribisi's talents in what appears to have been her first starring role.

Guess what girrls, it's right under your noses. And you haven't even seen it, most of you.

I find it amusing and a reflection of the heavy female slant of popular cultural ideology at the moment, that the commentators here focus on Claire's heartache in discovering her "boyfriend" graphically "cheating" on her -- while completely ignoring April's relationship with her boyfriend Neal. Claire and Chad had spent all of two evenings together and had sex once before that happened. OK, so it was meaningful sex. Chad had made no promises and done nothing to pledge monogamy. They were beginning to explore each other. They had connected. His statement "Claire, I love you", as she walked away from his house the morning after was clearly an expression of feeling and connection, rather than a commitment -- if she was able to understand him at all. As well we know, although Clare doesn't, that he was set up and probably didn't go out looking for it. Clare's hot hurt that Chad's having sex with someone else was "cheating' at that infant stage was about as unjustified as it's possible to be in the modern urban context -- and entirely a product of Claire's projections ahead of reality. In contrast, April privately and publicly humiliates her long term boyfriend just about maximally by spending more nights a week than not sleeping in some new pickup's home, only to extricate herself the next morning without waking up Mr. Strange, by calling any one of their mutual friends to come pick her up -- or for that matter her boyfriend himself. Meanwhile, Neal is reduced to supplicating her to stay with him "tonight, at least". When Neal succeeds for a while in extricating himself from this utter self-denigration by finding someone new -- she lures him back to her, by convincing him she sees and needs and truly appreciates (no kidding!) the real Neal, as no one else can.

This scene is even described by one girrrl reviewer thus: "Theres this scene with juliette and Micheal Rapaport(april and neil) sitting in his car. She finallyl explains to him how she really feels and what she sees in him, and that she's sorry for being so "slutty." Juliette delivers this scene with such raw emotion that every time I watch it I tear up myself." Yeah, well anyone who believed she was going to change much of anything because of that bit of emotional manipulation doesn't know much about people. She wasn't remotely close to changing -- which in any fundamental way is always dicey and at best a long road anyway. Try reversing the genders girrrls.

Finally, any guy who would marry an April is freaking totally out of his self-deluded mind, unless he gets off on thoroughly masochistic self-destruction, and wants that as the predominant and public theme of his personal life. She is a good definition by example of a total slut. And no, that judgment doesn't reflect a general prejudice against girrrls who like me have been with a whole lot and even scores of the opposite sex. I often prefer women with considerable experience of different men. Instead that judgment reflects the way that April habitually does her maximally casual sex, long after she's proven she can (to the limited extent that's ever much of an issue for girrrls), how little she really looks for anything else, and how she likes instead to relate to her steady "relationship interest" while she's doing her all consuming thing. Well, conceivably if she had followed her genuine total slut period by an extended period of abstinence, or a previous year or longer of monogamy with someone else -- to show me that what she was looking for really had changed. After all, cheating is as easy, and habitual, for a total slut like April as the nearest bar and an evening supposedly spent with her girlfriends -- any evening randomly chosen without effort or pre-planning. Although actually, her history of total slutting while simultaneously manipulating a man who was emotionally committed to her, would permanently disqualify her so far as I'm concerned.

As well, now that I'm on the subject, it's hardly an accomplishment for any reasonably attractive mid-thirties or younger woman to casually bed scores or hundreds of men -- even if she limits herself to attractive men. Most young women above dog status (bad fat) can if they want to, if they dispense with any sort of commitment or even a strong (if sometimes fast) emotional connection as pre-qualifiers. There's a vast sea of men out there, including attractive ones, who are interested in casual sex but can't get it at will just because they want it -- or can only get it by working really, really hard at it. It's only an accomplishment of sorts when men rather than women do something like that -- for the simple reason that only a small minority of men CAN, although the great majority of young men would love to be able to (sometimes desperately so). That in a nutshell is why women can be sluts and men really can't. (Although many men use the word unfairly, and with more than a little jealousy.) A slut is someone who habitually has careless, easy sex. It's not simply blind social prejudice, as the current feminist line would have it. It's the nature of the different "market conditions" for casual sex between the two sexes. For women, screwing lots of men very quickly and easily merely involves relaxing or abandoning requirements which most women enforce (most of the time) before sex. For men it requires being very unusually attractive, in one way or another.

As for my downward mobility premise -- consider who appears as the possible happy ending guy, who picks up our West LA (parents') upper class mansion dwelling late 20 something Some Girl, as the movie is ending. A nondescript in looks and personality, but moderately forceful, young member of the LAPD.

I think I missed something here.

The plotline of the movie was tried & true, I guess that's why we have another one. The characters all seemed to muddle along...I kind of wanted them to show off their weirdness a little more. The best scene was when the brother (Jason?) tells off April in the club -- very well done!

But I still have a few questions.. That bruise on April's head...I thought that was Karposi Sarcoma (sp?), one of the precursors of the AIDS virus. It would make sense.

At what point did Chad fall out of love w/ Claire? I feel like I missed something...though I rewound that part of the movie a few times.

The ending was predictable..but was anyone in the house?

I agree w/ one of the reviewers on here, who said the movie should've been titled "Burned". I think the version I saw was called "Some Girls" but dont quote me on that -- I just set the VCR to tape after I read the description..