Movie Review – The Good Girl

The Good Girl (2002) – A small town Texas woman (Jennifer Aniston) is bored with her life.  Bored with her well meaning but ineffectual, stoner husband (John C. Reilly).  Bored with her pointless job in a local discount store.  All that boredom leads to her having an affair with a young coworker (Jake Gyllenhaal) who is obsessed with Holden Caulfield from the novel “The Catcher in the Rye”.

I honestly don’t know what to do with this movie.  There’s plenty to like about it.  First and foremost, the work of Aniston.  This is not her usual vacuous rom/com character.  She plays the beaten down spirit of Justine beautifully.  It’s not that her life is bad, it’s just not much of anything.  Justine has never had the imagination to envision anything other than the life she has.  She just knows that she wishes it were more.

I know exactly how she feels.

Reilly is not bad as her husband Phil.  He truly is a non-entity until the moment of betrayal.  The moment that forces many of them out of their comfortable ruts.  Tim Blake Nelson is…interesting as Phil’s best friend and fellow stoner Bubba (although Nelson is the least likely looking Bubba I have ever seen).  The problem is that neither director nor actor seem to have any idea quite how to play the character.  Which is rough since he holds a rather pivotal moment in the movie in his hands.  A moment that fell completely and utterly flat because of that.

Jake Gyllenhaal did nothing for me as Holden/Tom.  He’s physically attractive enough to be believable as the object of a fling but the character is so artificial and one dimensional I found it hard to believe that Justine couldn’t find someone, ANYONE, more interesting to meet at the local “no tell motel”.

It’s funny looking at how the movie is described in various places.  The Wikipedia entry for it calls it a “black comedy”, while Netflix’s description is : “Feeling trapped in her marriage, “good girl” Justine begins an affair with Holden, a younger co-worker who’s obsessed with The Catcher in the Rye. But it doesn’t take long for Holden’s passion to bloom into a poisonous obsession.”  Makes it sound like an intense, psychological thriller, right?

It’s neither of the above.  It lacks any sense of morbid humor or elements of farce to do that.  The movie is everything OTHER than intense.  The tempo is slow and lacks any sense of excitement.

Which is actually one of the best parts of the movie.  This is story of people living life in slow motion so it shouldn’t be fast paced, it shouldn’t be intense.  It meanders, without any seeming direction or destination.

Just like Justine’s life.

So yes, I don’t quite know what to do with this movie.  I actually dozed off during the final 15 minutes and had to go back to see the ending.  But I wanted to see it.  And that’s something.  Jennifer Aniston shows that she’s got more range than her critics give her credit for and the story is interesting.  In a sad, plodding, meandering kind of way.  Along the way it has gotten some sterling reviews.  I have no idea what movie they watched.

Rating – *** Worth A Look