All The Real Girls
(2003)
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David Gordon Green directs ALL THE REAL GIRLS, an achingly sincere drama that captures the complexities of first love--and loss--with breathtaking honesty. Paul (Paul Schneider), a small town charmer, has spent his life living it up with his buddies Tip (Shea Whigham), Bo (Maurice Compte), and Bust-Ass (a scene-stealing Danny McBride), in addition to sleeping with every girl in town. But when Tip's virginal younger sister, Noel (Zooey Deschanel), returns from boarding school, Paul's priorities change completely. Discovering love for the first time, Paul spurns his lecherous past and declares himself a new man. No more booze, no more two-timing. But just when he thinks he's found redemption, something happens that shatters him to his core. |
A thoughtful, well acted movie carried along by emotions rather than plot (in other words, nothing much happens), this small-town study of love and friendship has the potential to either beguile or bore audiences. Writer/director David Gordon Green (whose first film was the accomplished drama George Washington) certainly captures the awkwardness and insecurity of a fledgeling romance, gaining naturalistic honesty from local stud Paul Schneider and his friend's virginal young sister, Zooey Deschanel. Green is adept at writing dialogue that seems to spring from their hearts, but there's a significant twist in their relationship that feels out of character and contrived mainly for emotional upheaval. The film certainly has mood, courtesy of some lyrical North Carolina landscape photography and an evocative soundtrack, yet the impression lingers of a movie that thinks a little too highly of itself.
Halliwell's Film Guide
Truthful drama of young love and its vulnerability, its hopes, fears and disappointments.