Post – September 3, 2002

The Good Girl

Rarely has my opinion of a movie changed so drastically while I was watching it. In the first half, I just didn’t believe Jennifer Anniston as a downtrodden Retail Rodeo employee, and I thought the story was simplistic and the characters stereotypes. But as it went on, it sort of seeped into my bones and I began to enjoy it a lot. And did I mention it has John C. Reilly?

While “Trust” is a much, much better movie, “Good Girl” reminded me of Hal Hartley movies in how they use exaggerated plot and characters to illuminate truths behind them. That’s a really high-falutin’ film school way of looking at this movie, but it’s all I could come up with to explain how it affected me.

I do think that Jennifer Anniston has the best chance of all the “Friends” gang to make a decent movie career – even if she is more suited in the end to fluffy stuff like “Picture Perfect” and “Object of My Affection.”