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Film: Very Good Girls

Posted by Dante on Friday, November 21 2014 at 07:44:50AM

Poor Dakota. I suspect that audiences may be pulling another "Shirley Temple" and deciding that a post-adolescent role for Ms. Fanning is "icky."

Very Good Girls is yet another film that appears to have been sat on for a while and released without much theatrical exposure.

The film centers around the friendship between two girls after their last year of High School: the Dawson-cast Elizabeth Olsen and the age appropriate Dakota Fanning. While it is ostensibly about a pact to lose their respective virginities before going to college, it is a far cry from a teen-sex film.

Fanning's character has parents who are both shrinks and are emotionally rather stunted and controlling. She takes refuge in the other girl's freewheeling Librul household.

But they both meet the same guy. And while it is initially Olsen who is ga-ga and Fanning ambivalent, the real chemistry is between the guy and Fanning. Her decision to not disclose her relationship with Olsen's unrequited crush creates a tension beneath the surface.

Some critics thought that Olsen's character's 'rents were too broadly drawn as idealized Liberals. All I can say is that they seem to be drawn from many of the Liberal families I've met both Left Coast, NYC Jewish and Midwestern. ( Still haven't hobnobbed with any Southern Liberals yet. )

To me the overbroad element was the brooding artsy boy-toy. But then again, this film is more about him as an object, rather than his inner-life.

I felt that both of the leads were excellent. Particularly Fanning whose role is more significant for what she ISN'T saying than what she IS.

Kiernan Shipka as Dakota's sister is seen FAR too little.

Overall, the film is works very well as a piece of the kind of biographic feminism I associate more with European female directors. At its core is an almost literal sisterhood. And a message that is very sex-positive for AGs. But which suggests that the guys who are worthwhile getting to be with still shouldn't sideline the ability to have close female friends.

Unfortunately, between this one getting largely ignored, and The Last of Robin Hood getting shunned it seems as if everyone's favorite prodigy hasn't slipped one bit, but that the audiences cannot conceive of her becoming an adult.

Dante

Dante





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