The summer before college for two close friends provokes some pretty predictable life lessons in "Very Good Girls," a romantic drama that features likeable performances from Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen but can't overcome the story's lack of emotion. In her directorial debut, Oscar-nominated screenwriter Naomi Foner (Running on Empty) shows a true understanding of the complexity of female friendships, but we wish there was a little more liveliness to the proceedings.
Lilly (Dakota Fanning) and Gerri (Elizabeth Olsen) are longtime friends who are spending their last summer together before heading off to college. Lilly's world is turned upside down when she catches her father (Clark Gregg) cheating on her mother (Ellen Barkin). A few days later, she ends up being pursued (but in a romantic way!) by David (Boyd Holbrook), an ice cream seller she met on the street with Gerri. Both girls are determined to lose their virginity by the end of the summer, and while Gerri is busy trying to win over David, the guy is busy winning over Lilly. Lilly feels the need to hide her relationship with David from Gerri, but more anguish sets in, and Lilly continues to act clumsy.
The two girls' families couldn't be more different. Norma (Ellen Barkin), Lilly's mother, is a stern psychotherapist, and her father Edward (Clark Gregg) is a doctor, both practicing in their beautiful home. That is until Edward is caught flirting with a patient. Gerri's parents are the "granola" type; his father Danny (Richard Dreyfuss) is a jolly old leftist, and his wife Kate (Demi Moore) is a free-souled mother. None of these four have much to develop as characters, and Moore, in particular, is barely present. But they mainly serve to reflect aspects of the protagonists or provide elements for them to rebel against.
Lilly, reserved and introspective, is on her way to Yale University and has a summer job as a river cruise guide, with a boss (Peter Sarsgaard, Foner's son-in-law) who makes unsubtle advances. Gerri is livelier and fun, dressing like a Halloween hippie and singing folk songs. Her songs and others used in the film are by Jenny Lewis, who is also represented by a poster of her old band, Rilo Kiley, on Lilly's bedroom wall. But this attempt to add a veneer of how cool it is to be a hipster is unconvincing in a film that feels frozen in time.
Their biggest problem is that when conflict arises-David only has eyes for Lilly, while Gerri thinks she will be his chosen one-neither girl behaves in a manner believable to 21st-century New Yorkers. Lilly offers her virginity to him on the garage floor, but keeps this news from Gerri. Out of guilt, she limits her dates after discovering that Gerri's family has suffered a tragedy, sending David to comfort her. The predictable pattern of friendships being broken by lies and withheld secrets, only to be repaired in the end, plays out with a numbing lack of urgency. Only one scene in which Lilly confesses the reasons for her break with Gerri to her father evokes anything approaching moving. Fanning, as always, suggests an inner life beneath her luminous delicacy. But none of the performances are memorable, including Olsen's.
There are undoubtedly interesting ideas at the heart of "Very Good Girls." Foner's script doesn't overplay the friends' personality differences, though it's clear that Lilly has always felt slightly inferior to Gerri when it comes to attractiveness. The filmmaker also spends some time examining how Lilly begins to subtly reject her nice-girl persona, in part as an angry response to her father's (Clark Gregg) adultery with her mother. The film's main flaw, however, is that while David is meant to be an inscrutable, sensitive heartthrob who Lilly can't fully understand, as portrayed by Holbrook, he's mostly a good enigma whose interest in Lilly is never completely understandable. In most films, David would pursue the confident and vivacious Gerri, but the production plays with the cliché without really justifying it.
Although the chemistry between Fanning and Holbrook isn't that strong, she and her female co-star skillfully portray teenage friends who know every aspect of each other's lives, which makes Lilly's decision to hide their relationship all the more potentially damaging. As Lilly's relationship becomes more serious and a tragic event occurs in the girls' lives, "Very Good Girls" heads toward the inevitable moment when the truth finally comes out. However, the suspense is dulled by the fact that we never really see the urgency of her bond with David, nor do we realize the depth of pain that the betrayal will bring to Gerri. Despite its delicate observations about young friendships and the looming uncertainty of leaving home, "Very Good Girls" ends up feeling very enjoyable but not very engaging.
Perhaps more disappointing about the film than its usual visual style is that the female leads aren't given ample room to develop as dynamic characters beyond the more urgent confines of the script's settings. At the beginning of the film, Lilly finds her father (Clark Gregg) with another woman. Instead of locating Lilly's response through more indirect and contemplative means, she is swept to the periphery until much later, when she tells her, regarding her parents' separation, "You could just die and none of it would matter.". Such an obvious attempt to explain Lilly's penchant for hyperbole would be less awkward if Foner weren't so gratuitously dark about it, as Lilly stares at the floor as her father walks away, accompanied by the soundtrack's mournful piano (literally, given the next scene).
Some brief moments suggest deeper levels of self-discovery; When Lilly sits on her bed, feeling her breasts as if trying to achieve greater familiarity with her own body, this is drawn from the largely histrionic mode that informs most of the other scenes. Likewise, the opening scene of Lilly twirling and dancing, separate from the film's immediate narrative events, offers unbalanced emotions in exposition. However, Foner often insists on convoluted subplots, notably one involving Joe (Peter Sarsgaard), a co-worker interested in Lilly, whose presence only provides a third-act excuse for the two girls to suspect each other's intentions. Furthermore, his perverted advances are overlooked but then averted by Foner's disingenuous examination of the less than decent motivations that drive Lilly's sexual awakening and, in turn, the male gaze she seeks to exploit her vulnerability.
Overall, "Very Good Girls" is a pretty poor excuse to subject those of us who have enjoyed Fanning since 2001's "A Lesson in Love" to watching her flash her privates, fondle herself provocatively, and have fun in lingerie without no dramatic purpose. Yes, she should be allowed to grow on screen. But without a backstory to justify it, it just seems sad and desperate. Foner portrays how women should relate to each other in these circumstances. Lilly and Gerri don't have to be sympathetic characters, but they should be believable characters whose lives and actions are not completely dependent on the men in their lives (men who deliver lessons that are cloying, like "Sometimes it's easier for others to forgive us than to ourselves"). The production wants to highlight female friendship, but Foner's clumsy and forced approach seems to have more affection for a fake love story. The empty and clichéd script, together with the criticism of the casting choice, highlights the lack of depth and originality in the film. It seems that the experience of watching the film may lead viewers to become distracted by thoughts such as Fanning's paleness or inappropriate costume choices. The supposedly moving tone of the ending, which simply offers the characters another opportunity to undress, seems to be yet another criticism of questionable artistic decisions.
"Very Good Girls" is a dull drama that finally intensifies into some angry moments, but it's still not enjoyable. The film had a very dull look; even on sunny days it looked dull and gray. Reflecting the girls themselves, but this does not make the experience pleasant to watch due to the lack of gravity, urgency and cause-effect of its events. But then again, they are not good girls. Maybe teenagers who are going through the same emotions as our young heroines and who are looking for something more serious than their usual options might enjoy this, but that's a pretty limited audience.
Lilly (Dakota Fanning) and Gerri (Elizabeth Olsen) are longtime friends who are spending their last summer together before heading off to college. Lilly's world is turned upside down when she catches her father (Clark Gregg) cheating on her mother (Ellen Barkin). A few days later, she ends up being pursued (but in a romantic way!) by David (Boyd Holbrook), an ice cream seller she met on the street with Gerri. Both girls are determined to lose their virginity by the end of the summer, and while Gerri is busy trying to win over David, the guy is busy winning over Lilly. Lilly feels the need to hide her relationship with David from Gerri, but more anguish sets in, and Lilly continues to act clumsy.
The two girls' families couldn't be more different. Norma (Ellen Barkin), Lilly's mother, is a stern psychotherapist, and her father Edward (Clark Gregg) is a doctor, both practicing in their beautiful home. That is until Edward is caught flirting with a patient. Gerri's parents are the "granola" type; his father Danny (Richard Dreyfuss) is a jolly old leftist, and his wife Kate (Demi Moore) is a free-souled mother. None of these four have much to develop as characters, and Moore, in particular, is barely present. But they mainly serve to reflect aspects of the protagonists or provide elements for them to rebel against.
Lilly, reserved and introspective, is on her way to Yale University and has a summer job as a river cruise guide, with a boss (Peter Sarsgaard, Foner's son-in-law) who makes unsubtle advances. Gerri is livelier and fun, dressing like a Halloween hippie and singing folk songs. Her songs and others used in the film are by Jenny Lewis, who is also represented by a poster of her old band, Rilo Kiley, on Lilly's bedroom wall. But this attempt to add a veneer of how cool it is to be a hipster is unconvincing in a film that feels frozen in time.
Their biggest problem is that when conflict arises-David only has eyes for Lilly, while Gerri thinks she will be his chosen one-neither girl behaves in a manner believable to 21st-century New Yorkers. Lilly offers her virginity to him on the garage floor, but keeps this news from Gerri. Out of guilt, she limits her dates after discovering that Gerri's family has suffered a tragedy, sending David to comfort her. The predictable pattern of friendships being broken by lies and withheld secrets, only to be repaired in the end, plays out with a numbing lack of urgency. Only one scene in which Lilly confesses the reasons for her break with Gerri to her father evokes anything approaching moving. Fanning, as always, suggests an inner life beneath her luminous delicacy. But none of the performances are memorable, including Olsen's.
There are undoubtedly interesting ideas at the heart of "Very Good Girls." Foner's script doesn't overplay the friends' personality differences, though it's clear that Lilly has always felt slightly inferior to Gerri when it comes to attractiveness. The filmmaker also spends some time examining how Lilly begins to subtly reject her nice-girl persona, in part as an angry response to her father's (Clark Gregg) adultery with her mother. The film's main flaw, however, is that while David is meant to be an inscrutable, sensitive heartthrob who Lilly can't fully understand, as portrayed by Holbrook, he's mostly a good enigma whose interest in Lilly is never completely understandable. In most films, David would pursue the confident and vivacious Gerri, but the production plays with the cliché without really justifying it.
Although the chemistry between Fanning and Holbrook isn't that strong, she and her female co-star skillfully portray teenage friends who know every aspect of each other's lives, which makes Lilly's decision to hide their relationship all the more potentially damaging. As Lilly's relationship becomes more serious and a tragic event occurs in the girls' lives, "Very Good Girls" heads toward the inevitable moment when the truth finally comes out. However, the suspense is dulled by the fact that we never really see the urgency of her bond with David, nor do we realize the depth of pain that the betrayal will bring to Gerri. Despite its delicate observations about young friendships and the looming uncertainty of leaving home, "Very Good Girls" ends up feeling very enjoyable but not very engaging.
Perhaps more disappointing about the film than its usual visual style is that the female leads aren't given ample room to develop as dynamic characters beyond the more urgent confines of the script's settings. At the beginning of the film, Lilly finds her father (Clark Gregg) with another woman. Instead of locating Lilly's response through more indirect and contemplative means, she is swept to the periphery until much later, when she tells her, regarding her parents' separation, "You could just die and none of it would matter.". Such an obvious attempt to explain Lilly's penchant for hyperbole would be less awkward if Foner weren't so gratuitously dark about it, as Lilly stares at the floor as her father walks away, accompanied by the soundtrack's mournful piano (literally, given the next scene).
Some brief moments suggest deeper levels of self-discovery; When Lilly sits on her bed, feeling her breasts as if trying to achieve greater familiarity with her own body, this is drawn from the largely histrionic mode that informs most of the other scenes. Likewise, the opening scene of Lilly twirling and dancing, separate from the film's immediate narrative events, offers unbalanced emotions in exposition. However, Foner often insists on convoluted subplots, notably one involving Joe (Peter Sarsgaard), a co-worker interested in Lilly, whose presence only provides a third-act excuse for the two girls to suspect each other's intentions. Furthermore, his perverted advances are overlooked but then averted by Foner's disingenuous examination of the less than decent motivations that drive Lilly's sexual awakening and, in turn, the male gaze she seeks to exploit her vulnerability.
Overall, "Very Good Girls" is a pretty poor excuse to subject those of us who have enjoyed Fanning since 2001's "A Lesson in Love" to watching her flash her privates, fondle herself provocatively, and have fun in lingerie without no dramatic purpose. Yes, she should be allowed to grow on screen. But without a backstory to justify it, it just seems sad and desperate. Foner portrays how women should relate to each other in these circumstances. Lilly and Gerri don't have to be sympathetic characters, but they should be believable characters whose lives and actions are not completely dependent on the men in their lives (men who deliver lessons that are cloying, like "Sometimes it's easier for others to forgive us than to ourselves"). The production wants to highlight female friendship, but Foner's clumsy and forced approach seems to have more affection for a fake love story. The empty and clichéd script, together with the criticism of the casting choice, highlights the lack of depth and originality in the film. It seems that the experience of watching the film may lead viewers to become distracted by thoughts such as Fanning's paleness or inappropriate costume choices. The supposedly moving tone of the ending, which simply offers the characters another opportunity to undress, seems to be yet another criticism of questionable artistic decisions.
"Very Good Girls" is a dull drama that finally intensifies into some angry moments, but it's still not enjoyable. The film had a very dull look; even on sunny days it looked dull and gray. Reflecting the girls themselves, but this does not make the experience pleasant to watch due to the lack of gravity, urgency and cause-effect of its events. But then again, they are not good girls. Maybe teenagers who are going through the same emotions as our young heroines and who are looking for something more serious than their usual options might enjoy this, but that's a pretty limited audience.