My Girl

God knows, good family entertainment is hard to come by. In my considered opinion, My Girl is an outstanding exception from this rule. I have not read the book the film is based on. I would not be surprised, if it turned out to be much more superior to the film version; I, for one, find it unfortunately too often a case. However, judged on its own merits, the movie scores as high a rating as 8 in my book--in terms of achieving its purpose: pleasing the whole spectrum of possible viewers. The story-line is nicely balanced, with just the right mixture of the human situation drama, realism, insight into child psychology and optimism. One might argue that in the film finale Veda is shown as having too quickly recovered from her supposedly terrible and tragic loss, but children are indeed this way, and the depth of her earlier suffering is sure evidence that this chapter of her life will be forever locked into her conscience. It is exactly the balance I want my daughter exposed to. The dialog is fine: mature enough to show Veda's precociousness without overdoing it and to give the parents some intellectual pleasure and simple enough, on the other hand, for children to follow without losing themselves in its complexities. I regard myself as a poor judge of acting, but having said that, I find the acting in My Girl totally satisfying. If I may venture a guess, I'd say that, e.g., Jack Nickelson at his best would be to a large extent lost on the younger audience and would not be missed by adults who expected just to have great time with their kids together. That my wife and I have had.

I recall seeing My Girl eleven years ago and fully understanding what was going on in the film. The chemistry between Culkin and Chumskly is good considering they are both kids. The film is funny and is heartbreaking because it was one of the first films to make me cry. I love this movie , but stay away from the sequel.

I just finally watched My Girl last night, never saw it before, never really had the opportunity too, but my friend mentioned it while we were renting over at Hollywood Video and she said it was a really cute movie that could bring a few tears to my eyes, I wasn't in the mood for sad, but I have heard quite a bit about this film. I have to say that despite the fact that I wasn't blown away by the movie, it was a nice and honest film that you don't see in today's films, not to many are genuine like this.

Vada is a little girl who basically surrounded by death in some aspects, her mother passed away and her father works in a funeral home. When a make up artist, Shelly, comes to work for her dad, Harry, Vada is a little threatened that her dad might be taken away from her. But she has another love, an English teacher who's class she starts taking just to impress him, but another little boy, Tommy, has a little crush on Vada, but as soon as she realizes what she has lost, maybe she should take a closer look at things.

My Girl is a sweet and charming film that could make anyone feel very good and just makes you want to hug someone afterwards, as cheesy as it may sound. Even though I didn't cry, it does have some sad little moments, Macaulay shined in this movie, you could just tell this kid was star bound, wish someone would give him a break, because he is slowly climbing to top again. But he and Jamie were the stars of the film and really made it worth a watch.

6/10

It's 1972 in small town Madison, Penn. Tomboy Vada Sultenfuss (Anna Chlumsky) has Thomas J (Macaulay Culkin) as her best friend. She lives with her father (Dan Aykroyd) and grandmother in their funeral parlor home. One day, Shelly DeVoto (Jamie Lee Curtis) answers an ad to do makeup for the funeral home.

Anna Chlumsky and Macaulay Culkin couldn't be any more cuter. Anna gets to have some great funny one liners. It is possibly one of the best sweetest coming-of-age story. The romance between Dan Aykroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis is also lovely. I love the bumper car scene. There is probably way too many spoilers. I guess people were afraid to be shocked. The movie handles the death with class. Don't be scared off even for the kids. It's a great movie.

Despite being a guy, I find this movie to be a very accurate depiction of an 11-year old girl and the way she would deal with everything surrounding her. Granted, Vada is played by a girl who's 11 anyway, but remember, her dialogue was written by an adult. And speaking of kids, they do a great job! Everyone in this movie is very natural in their performance. I guess you could say there's not really a story per say, it's more of a character study than that. And it doesn't take too long for the characters to receive more development. It's just a good drama all around.