The Girls' Room

Most movies out lately are so redundant. A whole bunch of movies about popular, flawless, fake girls fighting over something lame. Don't get me wrong I have liked some of the more recent releases, but they all have the same stuff in it. The Girls' Room was so...GREAT! It was super easy to follow. And I think everyone could relate to some part of it, whether it was a character or a situation. I can't even name a favorite part, there were a ton. Every time it came on cable premiums, I was watching it. I made my best friend watch it and now, it's one of her favorites too. So to all of you who hated it... how nice, how nice, how very very nice.

I just bought the DVD from amazon and had to write about it. It was the most realistic and inspiring portrayal of being a woman at college that I have seen. Being a southern woman who attended Brown before transferring to NH Community College, it was a hard adjustment for me. Cat the protagonist in the film, was a role that I could relate to.

I think anyone who went to college, man or woman would like the film. Highly recommended. Although it sounds like a straight-ahead chick pic, ~ "The Girls' Room" instead turns out to be a humorous tale of difference and tolerance that, in the hands of frosh helmer Irene Turner, is less gender specific than the title would suggest. Winning, intimate performances by former sitcom star Soleil Moon Frye ("Punky Brewster") and newcomer Cat Taber anchor the film and help smooth over its occasional lapses in logic. The generally appealing picture has an outside shot at finding a distributor and will deservedly open doors for Turner, a co-producer on "Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss."

College roomies Casey (Frye) and Grace (Taber) are a contempo odd couple. Casey, a bohemian performance artist with a penchant for bad boys, profanity and pot, garbs herself in black and heavy mascara. Preppy good girl Grace just wants to ace her classes and wed her frat boy Romeo (Wil Wheaton). When Casey's obnoxious taunts and schemes put Grace's plans in jeopardy, she resolves to get even.

And so Grace begins to spend time with Casey's pal Joey (Gary Wolf), a guitar-strumming loner and the only guy her roommate hasn't nailed. That seemingly platonic friendship begets a cycle of jealousy, suspicion and innuendo that further imperils Grace's nuptial plans.

Far from being an update of "Single White Female"-the film that gave female roommates a bad name- "The Girls' Room" nicely develops its characters, resisting the urge to limit them as easy stereotypes. Casey, it turns out, knows she was dealt a bad hand from the start, whereas Grace subtly begins to question her sheltered Southern upbringing.

Nor does Amanda Beall's script demonize either character. Both women are flawed, to be sure, but despite their surface antagonism, each harbors a real desire to explore the other's life. Their mutual attraction-repulsion keeps the tension percolating and thankfully leaves some surprises for the final reel. The characters ultimately emerge in the script as wholly rounded and,as realized in Taber and Frye's empathetic performances, neither easy to like nor completely despicable.

Others in the cast, especially Wolf and Julianna McCarthy as Casey's grandmother, provide ample support. Production values are sharp, and the location photography (at North Carolina's Wake Forest University) adds a sun dappled collegiate feel to the proceedings.

They're showing this on some off-network. It's well crap. While it is not as bad as the B-movies they show on the Sci-fi network on Saturdays but still a fairly large pile of crap. The acting is passable. The plot and writing are fairly sub-standard and the pacing is entirely too slow. Every minute of the movie feels like the part of the movie where they're wrapping things up before the credits - not the peak of the movie, the denouement. Also, large portions of the cast look way to old for the age range they're playing. The whole thing is predictable, boring and not worthy of being watched. Save your time. It's not even worth the time it takes to watch it for free.

I first heard about this film quite a while ago, and have wanted to see it for a very long time. I am a very big fan of Soleil Moon Frye, and she is the main reason I wanted to see it. When I saw that it was released on DVD I was extremely happy.

From the moment the film started, I was drawn in, and I stayed drawn in until the end. Casey's (Soleil Moon Frye) opening and ending monologue was great, and an awesome way to open and end the movie. The ending is very good, and it leaves you feeling complete. The movie is really about two college roommates who are very different. It is about one of them wanting revenge on the other. The movie is very real, and that, to me, is very refreshing.

The only problem I had with the film was the editing. It is very choppy, and isn't put together all that well, but it isn't a big problem. I only thought about it during a few scenes.

The two main characters are compelling. I have to say that Soleil gives the best performance in the film. The other lead, Cat Taber (who plays Grace), was good, but it felt like her performance was missing something. The other actors were all great as well (Notably Wil Wheaton as Grace's fiancé, and Gary Wolf as Casey's friend).

The DVD has no extras at all, though. It only has the film and scene selections (a total of 8 chapters), and if you leave it on the main menu for too long, the movie starts by itself. The lack of extras doesn't bother me, though. It took the film long enough to get released.

While this movie isn't for everyone, I loved it, and will watch it more than once. The DVD doesn't seem to be a big release, so you may have a hard time finding a rental, but it is well worth the purchase price here! If you are a fan of one of the actors, this is a must have DVD! In closing, I would like to say "How nice, How very, very nice!"

I saw The Girls' Room at the Nashville Independent Film Festival and was floored by it.

Inspired direction, a terrifically complete script, and sharp performances fill the screen. Irene Turner's directorial debut is an excellent and well-paced one. Soleil Moon Frye's Casey absolutely owns the screen as a defining sexual-existential-college-punk-grrl.

The title may make males wince, but The Girls Room is happily not a chick flick. It is a funny and knowing Gen-X movie that hopefully will find a large audience.