Girl

This movie was a true heartache of a film. Girl, originally a novel by Blake Nelson, was the story of a highschool girl who discovers sex and the local music scene. Both enrich her life and make her feel differently in relationships with other people. It was a well written, subtle but powerful book that affected the lives of many young women. Sadly, the movie is studio junk.

The director and screenwriter chose instead to turn this into a movie about hot highschoolers going at it and acting like groupies. Each character has been flattened out to a cutesy stereotype. For example, Tara Reid was chosen to play Cybil, who in the book is a lesbian rocker and very withdrawn. The movie really has no plot, other than Andrea chasing around Todd as if she is an NSync groupie. I felt like I watched a two hour commercial for noxema or saw a 17 magazine come to life as a movie.

If you want to watch a goofy film about over sexed teenagers, rent this movie. If you want something th more heart, read the book. Or better yet, rent Blue Car or Thirteen.

This movie is just sad. It's "My So-Called Life" without the depth or interesting characters. It's "Clueless" without the endearing charm, heart, or entertainment. And yet it's somehow undeniably totally derived from both. Swain herself not only actually physically resembles both Alicia Silverstone and Claire Danes (especially with the ruby-dyed hair), but her narration even seems to fall halfway in between "Clueless"' poignant perkiness and "My So Called Life's" dark brooding. The hitch is that both can't possibly be done properly at the same time, and "Girl" is shining proof of that. This movie is so directionless and muddled that I'm kind of upset I bothered to watch it. It attempts to tackle just about every possible teen issue it can, which does not help it either. No scene in the movie is longer than a minute and a half, and not one of the million or so tangent plot lines ever becomes fully developed. And not one of the multitude of characters is ever deveolped even enough for the audience to care about them in the least. And on top of that, the movie is tremendously out of touch. The characters are all one dimensional stereotypical representations that some studio exec thinks are what "real" teens are like. This whole movie feels so condensed and confused that I honestly couldn't possibly summarize the plot. I think it has something to do with this chick having a crush, but the movie goes so far off the path trying to be an extra-glossy after-school special that it completely self-destructs. It's not good in the beginning and it only gets more embarassing as the movie reaches its absurd conclusions (which do not provide any character resolution or moral to any of the stories anyway). Pretty sad crap.

I didn't read the book & didn't walk in with preconceived notions. Basically a coming of age film about a girl attracted to a fledgling rock star and she falls into the "groupie" mindset & lifestyle for a bit. Nothing epic but everyone plays their part well & it's an entertaining movie.

When I saw this movie my last thought after previewing it was: WOW!! Finally, a movie that speaks to everyone who views it, a film that never had one dull moment in its running time! I was so amazed I had to watch it over and over again. I love Dominique Swain after watching this! I thought Sean Patrick Flanery wasn't bad either, even though I hated his character, Todd Sparrow. I liked it how this film was made when all these stars weren't as popular as they are now, like Tara Reid and Selma Blair. The film explores Dominique Swain's character coming out of her shy shell! She goes through all these emotional changes and grows stronger because of them and you really feel she has grown up by the end of the film and she's realized know one should ever use her like Todd Sparrow did throughout the whole movie up until the finale. The movie just relaxes you and takes on Andrea's journey of self-discovery of herself and the movie shows you that with a comedic outlook and I really like that touch. I give this film 8/10 stars! You'll love it like I did!

I read the book after I saw the movie, and the book to me was less real. I thought that Andrea and her overthought, psuedo-angsty voice-overs were what made her real. She was a little rich girl who essentially knew that she wanted for nothing, yet she's searching to fill a hole that she knows isn't really there. Complete with bad poetry-like flowery language and long sighs and large gestures, I thought that Andrea in the movie was real, and Andrea in the book was flat, uninspired. I didn't even hate Todd Sparrow, as has been mentioned by other viewers. I thought that the whole movie was about stupid little people doing stupid little things and learning from them, like how it really happens. I didn't think girl was oscar material, by any means, but I think that there will be a character that everyone will see a bit of themselves in.