Prova de Amor

World premiere at SUNDANCE 2003. Has a distributor (Sony) and will be in limited release on February 14

OFFICIAL PLOT SUMMARY: Twenty-two-year-old Paul lives with his beloved mom and works as a grease monkey in a broken down North Carolina mill town. Unambitious, he has a devoted circle of rowdy friends and a reputation as a callous heartbreaker. When he meets his best friend's sister Noel, fresh from her boarding school graduation, the two fall into a perfect, real, terrifying love. They share innermost secrets and inhabit a sweet, dreamy bubble of mutual admiration and understanding.

COMMENTS: The film has to be accepted on its own terms. Slow-paced, sensitive, and dreamy, it gets deep inside of its characters. Paul may be a callous seducer, but he's so gentle with the girl he loves, that he won't even take her virginity when they get a hotel room. When she makes some mistakes that he considers betrayal, this blue-collar tough guy is just as heartbroken and emotionally vulnerable as anybody with more "refinement". Although he is a mechanic in a Southern podunk town, his character is portrayed without any Southern or working class stereotypes.

It's a collaborative movie made by college buddies. Director David Gordon Green and star Paul Schneider also co-wrote the screenplay, and went to college together. Editor Zene Baker is another college buddy. I suppose you might truly call this a true collaboration. Green has the title of director, but when your two best buds are also your editor and screenwriter, not to mention the fact that one of them is on camera constantly, it's difficult to say where one person's contribution ends and another's begins.

If you would enjoy a slice of life comedy/drama that will probably evoke many memories of how you felt when you won and then lost your first love, this is an effective and heartfelt personal statement about that moment of time. The small town locales and the original score work to perfection.

Not the way we were in the Hollywood sense, and maybe not a big box office kind of picture, but an insightful look at the way we really were.

These young fellas are good, dawg!

I knew that "All the Real Girls" was going to receive a pretty intense amount of backlash for its sparseness, but damn if there aren't some pretty hostile remarks here, (haha). Can't say that I blame people for dissing it though. I, surprisingly, found myself having a lot more patience for this film then I thought. It could be because I live relatively close to the town where it was filmed, (well kind of, Raleigh's about 3-4 hours from Asheville), and found it to be a relatively accurate portrayal of young folks living in a small, North Carolina mountain town. In an environment like this you have tight-knit communities, close friendships, not much of an economic prospect, (hence all the late-20 something kids still living with their parents), very blissful scenery, and plenty of room for dreaming.

Paul, to me, is a very believable character as is his situation. He kind of fits the stereotype of a tough, damaged dreamer, but his awkwardness with Zoe and his playful monkeying with his friends and family break him of the James Dean mold. His character seems to have been very carefully crafted as to not fall into any cliches. Paul is certainly not the smartest individual, but he wears his heart on his sleeve and and seems just emotionally "open" enough. Though he's essentially in the same boat as his friends, (endless monotony in a small town, seeming to go nowhere, etc.), he does possess some sustenance that his friends don't seem to have. Paul has burnt all of his bridges in regards to his cynical romantic life, but he still has hope that there is more for life to offer. Paul's tainted image as a heartbreaker and a user is never very visible, but his willingness to express his regret and desire to change provide his character with some pretty rugged layering. He wishes to come to terms with his past, but wants to move forward as a better, changed man. Paul is delighted at the discovery of finding true love, but is also scared of losing it.

I enjoyed the rest of the characters as well. The tough, older brother of the girl you love- (Tip), the clown- (Bust Ass, his extra scenes on the DVD are a riot), the quiet, philosophical friend- (Bo), the damaged, but sweet natured, uncle, the desperate, but loving, mother. All of them were very real to me. Their subtlety and simple dialogue really brought this film to life for me, (though the subtlety seems to be what loses most viewers).

I'm not sure films of this nature should come with some kind of "be prepared for slow pacing and little action" warning, but they certainly are not everyone. For me, I enjoyed every cinematic sweep of the Asheville Mountains as well as the very realistic emotional intensity that mounted between all the characters. The soundtrack was equally amazing. Every song was perfectly placed and not overused. This is the first film I've seen by this director, and I look forward to any other he will make.

A perfect movie to watch if you're in the mood to just chill out and watch the sunset but it's already dark. It offers the meditative sensation of Baraka combined with a nearly pitch perfect portrayal of a small town slice of life topped off with an inherently interesting 'young love' story. My only thoughts for the filmmaker (and in my opinion a significant oversight) would be to figure out how to wrap up the story without affecting the tone... the last quarter felt tedious as you began to expect the traditional dramatic/thematic resolution and therefore anticipate the number of scenes to come; which work best when you're not intellectually involved but emotionally - or even better - intuitively involved.... once the brain clicks in, the experience becomes of one of anticipation and with a film like this, impatience.

Low budget and low tech, director David Gordon Green's "All the Real Girls" first struck viewer nerves at Sundance and it will do so everywhere.

Set in Appalachia with shots of the beautiful mountains juxtaposed with a town that never knew prosperity and is left behind in today's North Carolina where the Research Triangle is where it's at, this is a truly affecting and universal story of first love. It's told honestly, without either director's affectation or cast overacting. The story has soul.

Zooey Deschanel plays, outstandingly, a girl, "Noel," returned from boarding school where she's been since age twelve. She plays the trombone and doesn't want to go to college. She's never had a real job and seems not to have acquired much if any ambition or sophistication while away from home. She's a virgin and it's clear that hardly any of her contemporaries who didn't leave town are even remotely chaste. In fact, the suggestion is that most sleep with virtually all the young guys. Including two, "Paul," played by Paul Schneider and his best friend "Tip," portrayed with a brooding intensity by Shea Wigham. Tip is also Noel's brother and protective of her he is. So when his formerly carefree gangbanging bud, Paul, falls head over heels for Noel and she reciprocates he has issues.

The story is universal: the joy and pain of a serious first love, the pitfalls of communication, the unawareness of how words told and events improvidently related can be like mines going off. The simple but inevitable price exacted by inexperience and not just sexual.

There is a quiet and achingly familiar reality to Noel's and Paul's relationship. Anyone honest will recognize himself or herself from some early life. Anyone who genuinely doesn't has missed some pain but at a price. Director Green unflinchingly unravels the mysteries of growing wiser, a necessary but in some ways sad departure from innocence.

Without drugs or crime or a social commentary on the moribund economy of a gorgeous region, the film focuses on the two young people and their families and friends. They are recognizable, worthy of caring about.

When Paul, trying to understand Noel's not wholly consistent emotions and actions, blurts out that he's not that smart, a number of people in the audience chortled and several yelled out "No, you're not." They didn't understand that his comment wasn't self-denigratory but a nakedly honest confession of confusion and fear of loss. Haven't we all experienced that?

8/10.

All the Real Girls This is possibly the most accurate film about coming of age in small town America. It does this two ways first as other reviewers have noted the cast in the film portrays a realistic group of people making the best of it in a small town. Their behaviors are ordinary and often verge on boring much like a "normal person" in a small town, and not what Hollywood would have us believe youth/people are like. Upon further reflection I realize anyone outside of the norm really sticks out in this film in an awkward if not contemptible way. For the youth it is basically a waiting age for the big thing that will enhance their lives. I do not believe any of the young characters had much of anything resembling a job. They young cast of men hang out at a salvage yard and help/get in the way through the movie. The older characters are stoic and though they say little you get a feeling that they have seen it all before possibly in their own lives or of others.

The second amazing thing about this film is how well it captures the pace of small town life. It is repetitive and monotonous but in the stillness maybe one is capable of seeing more beauty then in faster paced places. I have never been to a North Carolina mill town and till this film never even thought about one but the filming of the area is very well done showing beauty where you least expect it be it the rain in a textile factor or someone going "Shhh shh".

On these two factors alone I'd recommend this film but the acting and story is very solid. It has been over a year since I viewed the film but the images still come to mind rather vividly, but the names of the characters escape me so I will leave that to others. I do not know who directed this film or for that matter recognized any of the actors but that is more of a testament of how strong of a work this film is and I highly recommend it.