Film Reviews

The Good Girl

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Deborah Rush
• Details: US / 93 minute / (15PG).

Justine Last (Aniston) is a 30-year-old cashier at the Retail Rodeo, a depressing convenience store in suburban Texas. Trapped in a drab marriage with the good hearted but permanently stoned Phil (Reilly), Justine seeks some excitement in the shape of her new friendship with a JD Salinger obsessed wannabe writer and fellow store worker, 'Holden' (Gyllenhaal). It isn't long before her relationship with the intense 22-year-old becomes a sexual affair and Justine finds herself pondering exactly where her life is going.

Penned by Mike White, who also wrote the acerbic Chuck and Buck a couple of years back, The Good Girl is an early contender for one of the films of the year. An exceptional achievement, it's a real and very moving drama masked around a dark hearted comedy of missed opportunities and broken lives. Deeply intelligent but sardonic (words you don't often see in relative proximity to Jennifer Aniston), The Good Girl doesn't condescend either its characters or the intelligence of its audience, a rare achievement these days. To be fair to Aniston, however, she's in the form of her life. Gone are the irritating series of quirks that are mistaken for character in Friends and instead she delivers an intensely moving and downbeat performance that is all too believable. But better than that, it's an extremely funny and genuinely likeable one. See this film.

Review by Garreth Murphy