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The Good Girl
4Ω out of 5 starsSHADOWS MUST SEE MUST-SEE
R E V I E W   B Y   R I C H   C L I N E
it's her last best chance From the writer-director team that brought us the brilliant Chuck & Buck, here's another astute and askew look at human behaviour.

Justine (Aniston) has done everything right, but she's bored with her dead-end life--her dopey and usually doped up husband (Reilly), her mind-numbing job at the Retail Rodeo with a bunch of losers in a faceless Texan suburb. Then she starts talking with one of her coworkers, Holden (Gyllenhaal), and the two somehow click. For the first time they feel they've found someone who gets them. But things are complicated: To Justine their affair seems just as pointless as everything else (and maybe there is a point to all that after all?), while to Holden it feels like the only way out.

There are moments of insight in this film that absolutely take your breath away, as the film dares to touch on things as they are rarely addressed in the cinema, most notably the crippling desperation and guilt most people live with every day but refuse to admit.

Aniston gives a startlingly layered performance--funny and bright, yet fragile and deeply unsure what the right thing is. It's the heart versus head thing, but to her it's all so much more intertwined. And she's beautifully transparent as a woman coming to terms with her own adultery, her own desires, passions and responsibilities. The supporting cast is fantastic as well; Reilly and Gyllenhaal continue to be two of the best actors on screen at the moment. And Deschanel is hilarious as Justine's smart-mouthed coworker.

Meanwhile, Arteta directs with simplicity that lifts out all of the textures of White's intricate and very accessible script. Together they avoid both predictability and sentiment in a way very few filmmakers can manage. This film isn't quite as tight and self-contained as Chuck & Buck; it breathes a bit more with the rough edges of real life. Don't miss it.

cert 15 themes, language, sex, brief nudity 18.Dec.02

dir Miguel Arteta
scr Mike White
with Jennifer Aniston, Jake Gyllenhaal, John C Reilly, Mike White, Tim Blake Nelson, Zooey Deschanel, Deborah Rush, John Carroll Lynch, John Doe, Roxanne Hart, Michael Hyatt, Jonathan Shere
release US 7.Aug.02; UK 10.Jan.03
Fox
02/US 1h33

Bad girl. Justine has an extra-marital fling with a younger coworker (Aniston and Gyllenhaal)

aniston gyllenhaal reilly
R E A D E R   R E V I E W S
send your review to Shadows... it's her last best chance Ned Mcned, Greenock: 1/5 "utter p*sh! worst film i've ever seen. says on cover 'hilariously funny' .... eh, it's not even a comedy, it's just boring and depressing. utter nonsense." (13.Jan.04)

Wendy, Canada: 4/5 "A great movie - wonderful performances from Jake and Jennifer. A fascinating yet occasionally disturbing look into the thoughts and feelings of everyday people." (20.Sep.06)

© 2002 by Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall

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