Review: Very Good Girls

Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen are two best friends on the verge of adulthood enjoying their last summer before college. They’re also virgins. Enter the young man (Boyd Holbrook) who will put a test to their friendship. Ellen Barkin and a dipshit Clark Gregg are Fanning’s parents, whilst politically-minded Richard Dreyfuss and Demi Moore are Olsen’s parents. Peter Sarsgaard is Fanning’s somewhat predatory boss.

 

An attempt to gloss over an inferior script with the casting of some big names (not to mention Gale Ann Hurd as producer), this 2013 female-centric coming-of-age tale from writer-director Naomi Foner (writer of “Running on Empty”, AKA Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s mum in her directorial debut) is awfully blah. The thing is, casting all of these big names merely alerts you to the fact that they’d all be better off doing something more substantial. A distressingly fat Richard Dreyfuss could play ‘political nerd father’ in his sleep (he’s spectacularly embarrassing here, but it’s intentional at least), ditto Peter Sarsgaard as ‘half-hearted sleaze’. Sarsgaard really needs to be careful with the roles he chooses, or else he’ll get typecast for the rest of his career. He’s much, much better than that (Foner is his mother-in-law by the way. Let that one sink in). Demi Moore and Ellen Barkin, meanwhile, are barely even in the film, the latter yet again saddled with a douche for a romantic partner (It could be its own cliché ‘The Ellen Barkin Dipshit Boyfriend Rule’).

 

Even though her coy attitude towards nudity (in films that are clearly requiring it) bothers me, I truly believe Elizabeth Olsen will be big someday. She’s got the acting talent, the looks, and that certain ‘it’ factor that can’t be taught. The two actresses have obvious chemistry (though Olsen is way older than Fanning and it’s obvious), and although not a huge Dakota Fanning fan, here she’s likeable, charismatic and…still blown of the screen by Olsen. I will say one negative thing about Olsen, however: She’s a terrible, terrible singer, and Fanning is a cruel monster for encouraging her. Seriously, she’s a subpar Joni Mitchell and I hate Joni Mitchell to begin with. I might just have to stop liking Olsen on principle now.

 

So yes, the two stars are good and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the idea of a coming-of-age film about teenage girls, especially if it eschews the bland romantic nonsense that is a bit cliché. With such interesting and intelligent actors, I had hoped we’d get a more original, thoughtful film. Unfortunately, the bland romantic nonsense is all the film is really about and it’s simply not good enough. It’s too safe and conventional to warrant such a high-calibre cast, and I’m not surprised that the screenplay was apparently written twenty years ago. There’s something really fucked up about the central conflict here revolving around the idea of one girl sleeping with another girl’s man. ‘I saw him first!’ kinda stuff. Is that what we’re giving young girls in the name of good storytelling now? That’s a fucking Jerry Springer episode! A “Bold and the Beautiful” storyline at best. Hell, the whole thing could’ve been solved easily and quickly if Fanning simply told Olsen what was going on from the start. Then there’d be no movie, you say? I’m failing to see the problem with that.

 

I’m all for female-oriented coming-of-age tales, just not this one. The two stars are good (there’s not a bad performance in it), the film itself isn’t. It’s safe and conventional, and barely has any drama or conflict worth a damn, and what we do get is lame and contrived. “Stand by Me” it ain’t, it’s moderately insulting actually.

 

Rating: C