Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

chocokitty11 First off,I have to say that i enjoyed the book. This however, is trash. The acting was so bad it was painful to watch. Dominique Swain's performance was terrible. It was like watching a middle school play. The reaction when Darcy said she was raped and Matt commits suicide was just completely wrong. Not only that, but the soundtrack was awful. It sounded like really watered down grunge. The only good song was one that Cybil sings. Surprisingly, I thought that Tara Reid as Cybil was really interesting. However, because of the script, not even an Oscar worthy performance could save this movie. In conclusion, this movie is garbage, but it was a lot of fun for my sister and I to make fun of.

radicalcowboy I thought the story line of the movie was OK. I agree the storyline was a bit trite; The way Andrea appears to "outgrow" TOdd at the end and just leaves him I thought was a bit overdone. It makes Andrea a pretty shallow character. I thought the best character was the Tara Reid character. I saw how she could stretch herself a little her when comparing the character she played in American Pie. The underlying theme that each of the characters lived such vastly different lives and yet orbited each other as friends in the same universe was the best part of the film....however I thought the soundtrack was excellent, excellent. I think that is what saved the movie. ANybody know if there is a soundtrack available for this?

aimless-46 I have probably spent more time on "Girl" than it warrants, just consider this a public service to prospective viewers who are unable to make head or tail out of the wide range of comments already posted. As to the quality of its adaptation from the novel, I won't go there because there is no purpose in "apples to oranges" comparisons and many others have relentlessly addressed the adaptation issue.Bottom line the movie version of "Girl" is a mess-which can be guessed without even viewing. Made-for-cable movies back in 1998 were generally lousy and not the mix of quality that they are in 2005. Neither director Jonathan Kahn nor writer David Tolchinsky had done a feature before 1998's "Girl" and neither has done anything since then. Just do the math. It is poor storytelling that dooms "Girl" despite generally competent production and acting. The editing has so many "jump cuts" that editing classes could use it as an example of continuity problems. "Girl" is pretty much what you would have if "Almost Famous" had been a long episode of "My So-Called Life". Dominique Swain plays the main character (Andrea Marr), basically the Penny Lane character in "Almost Famous". Swain's usual acting style is to brazen her way through roles, subtlety and nuance are not words that have ever been used to describe her performances. But in "Girl" she comes closest to a carefully crafted performance and actually shows some restraint. Perhaps this is because of her voice-over narration, which serves as a counterpoint to her actions on the screen. She has a nice voice when reined in and she was still very cute in 1998.The most obvious problem when adapting a novel is that the screenplay can include only a fraction of the material. The more characters included in the adaptation, the more shallow the character development. This is one of "Girl's" most obvious flaws as there is little reason to connect or care about any of the supporting characters, their quirks exist but we receive no background information so we can never understand why. There is Rebecca (Summer Phoenix) – a big-time grunge music fan who rambles on constantly about music trivia and sex. Rebecca gets the movie's best lines. There is Darcy (Selma Blair) – a walking eating disorder who is supposed to be Andrea's best friend although all they choose to showcase is her resentment of Andrea. There is Cybil (Tara Reid) - A nihilist grunge rocker with a bad home life and a lust for Andrea. Despite Tara Reid being shockingly good in this role (by far her best performance ever) the part is so poorly written and underdeveloped that it would have been best to omit it entirely. There are Kevin (Channon Roe) & Richard (Christopher Masterson) - class geeks who appear in the school cafeteria as part of Cybil's band and seem to have otherwise been omitted from the screenplay. Finally there is Todd (Sean Patrick Flannery) who is Andrea's main love interest and seems embarrassed about even being associated with this movie-he and Swain have no chemistry and seem genuinely uncomfortable together.Girl's fatal flaw is that it can't decide if it is a comedy, a drama, or a coming-of-age story. Since the humor is confined to an occasional witty line it isn't much of a comedy, the only indication that it was meant to be a comedy is some over-the-top humor about an abusive jock being hit over the head with a board and knocked out. Once is not enough as this nonsense is repeated later in the film. Although not even remotely funny it apparently is there to let the viewer know that this is a comedy as there are never any consequences to those committing the criminal assault (insert "Three Stooges" here). The comedy aspect is finally abandoned and the last few minutes treat us to Lifetime triple feature of teen suicide, bulimia, and homosexuality. These are tacked on with insufficient explanation, apparently because the writer and director sensed that the comedy angle was weak and they needed to qualify it as a coming-of-age story.This genre splitting ultimately undermines the Andrea character who despite Swain's best efforts comes across as a cobbled together mix of inconsistent and conflicting motivations and behaviors-making her impossible to identify with or care about. She is intelligent (headed for an Ivy League school), beautiful, self-assured, adventurous, and has a lot of friends. You have seen this character before in "Say Anything" but in "Girl" she overnight becomes one of the most hated heroines in teen comedy history. Meaning you have sympathy only for her various victims as she virtually rapes a guy to have her first sex, unfeelingly abandons her friends for cooler ones, explores her emerging femininity without regard to the consequences, and generally acts more eight than eighteen. Swain is physically perfect for the "Say Anything" type of heroine but this works against her so that her transformation into parental nightmare just doesn't ring true.Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

leann_24_M I thought this movie was an awesome insight to how teenagers feel and act and think. I think that the acting was a little rough, but that just added to the draw of the film, making it seem more real. This film made me laugh, made me cry, made me nostalgic, and over all, made me want to watch it again as soon as it ended.Dominique Swain in this movie was a love struck teen, who like most teens, doesn't really know what she wants. She's unsure of herself, and unsure of everything she does. Watching this movie made me remember how it felt to make those decisions that feel like nothing now that I'm older, but were everything when I was 16 or 17.