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(Chuck & Buck, The Good Girl, Livin Thing, Star Maps, TV: Homicide: Life on the Street, Pasadena, Six Feet Under)
Producer:
Matthew Greenfield
Screenplay:
Mike White
Music :
Andrew Gross
Cast :
Justine Last: Jennifer Aniston
Cheryl: Zooey Deschanel
Holden Worther: Jake Gyllenhaal
Jack Field: John Carroll Lynch
Bubba: Tim Blake Nelson
Phil Last: John C Reilly
Gwen Jackson: Deborah Rush
Corny: Mike White
"After living in the dark for so long, a glimpse of the light can make you giddy.
Strange thoughts come into your head and you better think them.
Has a special fate been calling you and you not listening?
Is there a secret message right in front of you and you're not reading it?
Is this your last, best chance?
Are you gonna take it?
Or are you going to the grave with unlived lives in your veins?"
The Good Girl
is a drama that makes you wonder whether you've fulfilled everything you want
to in life. Hardly anyone will feel that they have and they'll have
missed opportunities in the past that need to be caught up on, however impossible
they may seem.
Jennifer Aniston takes the role as put-upon housewife in the deep south
and supermarket checkout girl Justine Last, trying to decide whether she should take what
life has dealt her as her lot or if she should strive for more, but at what
cost?
At home she has pot-smoking husband Phil (John C Reilly) and, frequently
visiting, his layabout brother Bubba (Tim Blake Nelson). At work it's
an equally dull existence until she spots new cashier Holden Worther (Jake
Gyllenhaal) and sees an attraction in him which proves to be returned.
It's a love that can never be and which gets in the way of the rest of life,
such as when she's meant to be seeing colleague Gwen (Deborah Rush)
at the hospital after she's taken in with a stomach ache, but is spending her
time with Holden. Also, she wants to get pregnant, but fears her husband's
sperm count is low.
As for the end result of the film it doesn't take a genius to predict but
watching it is all about seeing how things get there. It's a brilliant piece
of work that I wouldn't want to spoil by detailing too much but if you like a
well-made drama then you won't be disappointed.
The cast is superb and makes the job of acting seem so effortless. There's
great lines from Zooey Deschanel as bored shop assistant Cheryl,
such as describing a skin cleanser to a potential customer as making her
skin so slick "anything will roll right off it such as water, lemon juice or
urine..." This came after describing, over the store tannoy system, a
drain cleaner on special offer as "Ladies, stick something new and clean up
your dirty, filthy pipes."
And one final thing - at no point do you think "It's Rachel from Friends!"
Jennifer Aniston has come of age. And, for the pervs out there, she does go
topless too.
The film is presented in anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen and suffers from
poor encoding during fast motion which makes things appear 'sticky'. This may
be due to the slightly grainy way in which it was filmed but the end result
isn't the best it could be.
The soundtrack is in Dolby Digital 5.1 and with that I can find no fault, but
it never uses the soundstage to any great degree so you're not missing out if
you only have a surround sound setup.
The extras are very thin on the ground:
Deleted Scenes (9 mins):
9 scenes, all with optional director's commentary. Given that it's a short
film some of these should definitely have been put back in to flesh it out
a little without the expense of losing the tightness of the film. All the clips
are in letterboxed 1.85:1 and surround sound, as are the rest of the extras.
Alternate Ending Montage (30 seconds):
Not massively different and took longer to write about than to watch.
Gag Reel (2½ mins):
The cast get things wrong and crack up in front of the camera.
Audio commentaries:
Two of them - one from director Miguel Arteta and writer/actor Mike
White, the second from Jennifer Aniston, the latter not covering
all the scenes in the film and only lasting 14 minutes.
The disc is also inflicted with a few piss-annoying trailers that you're
forced to sit through the second the disc boots up as if it was a rental title.
However, at least with this disc you can fast-forward through them.
The film contains 28 chapters, subtitles are available in English and the
main menu is animated and scored with a looped piece of music from the film.
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Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
