Movie Review: The Good Girl

The Good Girl

There have been so many stories written about the quality of Jennifer Aniston's performance in The Good Girl that, when I saw the movie on the shelf at a local video store, I just had to take the opportunity to check it out. I'm pleased to report that the critics were right: Jennifer Aniston is more than capable of a finely nuanced dramatic performance.

In The Good Girl, Aniston is Justine, a small town discount store clerk whose marriage (to John C. Reilly) is dull at best, and whose job bores her. Although she and her husband are going through the motions of trying to have a child, Justine's heart isn't in it and she finds herself wishing her life were different every night when she comes home to her housepainter husband and his buddy, Bubba, getting stoned on the couch. When a new clerk starts work at the store, Justine is intrigued. He's much younger at 22 than Justine's 30 years, he's good looking, and he's obviously at odds with the world he's forced to inhabit. Sensing a kindred spirit in depression, Justine approaches Holden (Jake Gyllenhaal) for a brief conversation. Before long, the two are lunching together daily and discovering that, for the first time in their lives, they've found someone who "gets" them. The attraction between them overwhelms everything else, and the two embark on a passionate affair. When Bubba catches the two, however, Justine's life spins out of control as she attempts to minimize the damage to her life and to her marriage, and at the same time not hurt too badly the young man she loves.

The Good Girl is such a good movie in part because of several superlative performances. Aniston is just as good as the critics have claimed, and Gyllenhaal may be even better. John C. Reilly is solid as usual (although it would be nice to see him in some role other than a cuckolded husband!). The script does a masterful job of making the characters real. Because Justine and Holden remind us of ourselves, we care about them. And it hurts us as much as them when we learn that the two saddest words in the English language really are "what if" (watch for the scene near the end of the movie when Justine tells her husband how she feels about him, and see if it doesn't stab you in the heart!).

FAMILY SUITABIILITY: The Good Girl is rated R for sexual content as well as some violence and language. It's also not a particularly happy movie, although it is hopeful and touching. The R rating seems about right for the film, so I'd say that no one under 16 should see the movie, though anyone 16 and older likely enjoy it. They'll also find a character somewhere in the film with whom they'll closely relate and will likely learn something about themselves as the story unfolds.