Dirty Girl

It's 1987 Oklahoma. Danielle Edmondston (Juno Temple) is a dirty girl. She has sex with the boys. She gets dropped into the special class filled with misfits. She befriends outcast Clarke Walters (Jeremy Dozier) who is coming to terms with his homosexuality. Her home life with her mother Sue-Ann (Milla Jovovich) is chaotic as she is about to marry Ray (William H. Macy). Danielle and Clarke go on a road trip to search for her birth father as Clarke's parents (Dwight Yoakam, Mary Steenburgen) chase after him.

I want to root for Danielle and Clarke. The movie needs more comedy. It's not that funny. With better comedy, the buddy chemistry would take care of itself. The movie would be much improved. It also relies too much on musical interludes. The story is a bit too messy. I wish the movie and the dialog is better written.

The title hurt the acceptance of this film. It earned $143k world wide. Juno has done 12 nude scenes in movie and TV in the past decade, that being said, nudity would detract from this movie. Itis really a pretty emotional ending.

I liked "Dirty Girl" because it was unabashedly fun. It was pro-gay rights, pro-female independence, and anti-religious persecution without it being about any of that. On the surface it was an '80s throwback with the teen kids embracing the "anything goes" attitude while their parents clung to their conservative values. Pack a suitcase, pop in a mixed tape and run away.

Juno Temple stars as the titular dirty girl, Danielle. She assumed the role of the rebellious daughter and the inappropriate student who relished any opportunity to be the sex symbol. The whole-heartedness with which Temple became Danielle not only made this type of person acceptable but empathetic too.

This isn't to say that the film was perfect. One of the big drawbacks was that although the lead character did evolve, she did so with incongruent leaps. My other issue was that whenever Danielle and her companion Clarke had to stop and sing, the film stopped too. That could be on purpose though since they do seem to be trying to sell the soundtrack just as much as the movie itself.

It's the movie itself, though, that I liked. It was the passion that all of the characters had for life that just danced off the screen. The societal lessons that important movies try to teach and which we all probably already know, are just silly, feel-good bonuses here since they came up with new, more realistic, and more relatable endings. Wait for Clarke's reaction to his final circumstances if at any point you fear the monotonous drone of melodrama.

"Dirty Girl" does bring to mind similar better movies which walked parallel paths, most notably "Jolene". And although after watching this, I immediately came home and bought the latter, it should still be able to find its place among accepting fans. It moves along at a quick pace, keeping the lead characters delightful even when they're depressed, and keeping the tone light even when the supporting characters commit some pretty heinous acts. I've never had a problem enjoying those types of conflicting scenes, but it does account for the movie's poor reception.

Keep in mind that this is writer and director Abe Sylvia's first film and that the archetypal characters can actually belong to any decade then you should have no problem enjoying, and secretly wanting to be, the dirty girl.

I saw Dirty Girl at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2010 and it was amazing!!!

I thought it had a good blend of drama and comedy therefore when things got heavy or sad I didn't get depressed or too down because a few scenes later I would be laughing.

I thought it was the best portrayal of the beauty of a relationship between a gay man and a straight woman since Will & Grace. It also had a great soundtrack. I can't wait to have a movie night at my house with this movie. It was just a fun movie with depth. No academy award worthy performances in my opinion but the acting is definitely good but no mind blowing performances.

My fav film of TIFF 2010

Dirty Girl (2010)

The movie starts with such stupidity and what seems like terrible acting and movie-making you're going to want to quit. Unless you're a high school kid looking for cheap thrills (and there ain't anything wrong with that--it's just a style thing). But hang in there. This movie gets better and better and better. By the end all the hilarity crashes down to a weepy finale--more convincing than it has any right to be after all the zany stuff prior.

It's mostly about two high school kids who don't fit in. They seem like opposites and we all know how fun opposite are in movie comedies. One is slutty girl Danielle who has a dysfunctional home life and who is wild partly because she's bored by school and is (it turns out) smarter than the cliché would have it. The other is an overweight kid Clarke who knows he's gay and who is afraid of coming out but everyone knows already anyway. He also has a dysfunctional family, and the movie eventually also clashes the two sets of parents (and accessory kin).

The plot moves fast and turns into a crisis and then a road trip. All good stuff. And it's filmed with an openminded low-budget freedom that makes it fun and doesn't always worry about verisimilitude. (The two leads are in a family planning class, for example, and are given a bag of flour they have to treat as their new baby. The bag has a face drawn on it in magic marker, and the face changes depending on what's going on around it. Her--it's a girl.)

But mostly it's the acting of Danielle (Juno Temple), and Clarke (Jeremy Dozier), that makes it all stick. Temple in particular is just oozing and exploding with energy and dramatic screen presence, whether being saucy or sassy, fun or sad. She takes over every scene and you want her to. Danielle drives a red 1965 Mustang convertible (of course--what else?). She knows what matters and who's a jerk and doesn't put up with crap. She's troubled, but all along you know she's basically right, and you end up totally on her side. And on Clarke's side, too, as he tries to make sense of his world now that someone accepts him without even blinking.

Eventually there is a deliberate Hollywood ending, complete with tears and spotlights on the stars. It's a farce, I suppose, or a silly over the top romp, and there are going to be people who never let it click. Humor is fickle. But once I was a good half hour in (and it took that long, unfortunately), but once I was, there was no going back. It's worth sticking it out. Very worth it.