Dirty Girl (2011)

You won't be disappointed!

Sadly Over-hyped

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

This could have been a witty period take on coming of age and finding your identity (a sort of Indi 'dirty' Pretty in Pink or Can't buy me love'), but I was distracted by the claim of a 1987 setting. The 1982 hair cuts and 1977 clothing made the production feel like it was run by a group of high school students without access to google! There was so much social, political and fashion change going on at the end of the 80s that failure to contextualise the story properly made this poorly written film feel flat and pointless as well as failing an otherwise great cast. Definitely, not one to recommend. I would go back to original films of the era for now, but also give some of the TV set in that era a go as well for new perspectives on the time.

What do you get when you take the a girl that looks for love in all the wrong places and an out of place gay friend searching for the girls dad? A movie that doesn't rub your face in the lifestyles choices made by the main characters. I really liked this film. Juno Temple did an outstanding job as did Milla Jojovich as the single mother of two. The story makes a circle and was very heart warming. The film makers use of innuendo was excellent. Most films show every gory detail to validate the characters and in this case the film maker left it up to your imagination. There was well timed humor through out the film and the harshness of reality. It demonstrates that we can only deal with what we have in front of us. I walked away happy I spent the time watching it. I liked the out of the ordinary film and would definitely recommend it!!!!

Imagine if Alison Lohman had played the Dede Truitt part in "The Opposite of Sex" (1998) and subtly inserted a bit of Luna Lovegood into the character, and you will have a pretty good idea of the look and feel of "Dirty Girl" (2010). Full of wisdom disguised as black comedy.The dialogue is not on quite the level of "The Opposite of Sex", especially the voice-over narration; but what is? Christina Ricci had so much to work with in that film that Roger Ebert commented specifically about the narration provided by her character: "I hate people who talk during movies, but if she were sitting behind me in the theater, saying all of this stuff, I'd want her to keep right on talking".Juno Temple (playing "Dirty Girl's" title character Danielle Edmondston) does not have as much to work with and her narration is much more conventional. And since her narration does not contradict the events taking place on the screen, any depth brought to her character must come from Temple's and Writer/Director Abe Sylvia's acting for the camera abilities. They are up to the task and Temple non-verbally sells viewers a character who is a lot more that she first appears to be. Sylvia's storytelling style juxtapositions crude and cute, which dooms the film commercially as there is a limited audience for a film structured around such contrasting elements.The main suspension of disbelief element is Danielle having a classic Mustang convertible at her personal disposal. This was a moronic choice by Sylvia as there is not time to insert a credible explanation; the car is not just a needless distraction but is also a poor fit for the character whose development would have been better served by something funky like a beat up Volkswagen.Bottom line this is Temple's movie, although she is ably assisted by Jeremy Dozier and Mary Steenburgen (as Danielle's buddy Clarke and his mother). The other characters are the deliberate stereotypes necessary for economically keeping the focus on Clarke and Danielle.Temple is really starting to take off, she is getting a lot of work and is stepping into the roles that Lohman would be doing if she were ten years younger. And Temple should have additional opportunities as she has more range than Lohman; with a nice off-kilter airhead quality when required. You could see that she was something special back in 2008 when her supporting role in "Wild Child" literally stole the movie. And she has finally overcome the first name confusion with a certain Ellen Page character.Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

I've never written a review on here before because usually I find some other reviewer that articulates more or less what I feel, so there's usually no need to add anything. But this movie only has good reviews! And I've just watched it and happen to think it's absolutely dire...Let me qualify first of all that my dislike for this movie is not due to the gay-friendly themes etc. I love gay culture and have seen plenty of gay movies. I go to the Turin Gay Film Festival every year. So it's not that. Indeed I watched it after seeing the trailer from Mary Steenburgen's IMDb page and thinking it might be an OK, fun little road movie, and interestingly different, what with the kid being gay and all. So there was no prejudice, in fact quite the opposite. I was looking forward to a gay kid being the 'hero' for once.But let's get to the first problem with this turkey. The movie is supposed to be set in 1987. I was already puzzled in the trailer by the fact that the hairstyles, clothes, etc, were more like 1979. And the whole film confirmed this. It just made no sense. I thought, maybe it was originally supposed to be set in '79 but then they realized they'd used a song from 1987, or a car (I'm no expert), or whatever, so they decided to change the caption at the beginning at the last minute? But then there was a photo of Reagan in the headmaster's office... So it WAS supposed to be the 80's. Well, maybe 1981 at a stretch, but not 1987, no way. Even the photos on the walls in the kids' bedrooms... OK I suppose the gay kid was supposed to be 'uncool', but still. No, it was just all wrong - never have I seen a worst reconstruction/representation of a year in a movie. And I was around at the time, I was just a little younger than the characters were supposed to be... OK maybe I wasn't living in Normal, Oklahoma, where the movie is mostly set, but you'd just need to watch the music videos from that year to see that the fashions and stuff were totally different... I mean, even accounting for it presumably being a backward place, in what parallel universe would ALL women (of all ages) have had Farrah Fawcett flicks in 1987?? The boys at the school, too, had 70's-ish hair. There were no mullets, no frizzy 80's hairstyles, etc, to be seen... It didn't feel like 1987 AT ALL. I mean, '87 was the Beastie Boys, house music, Whitney Houston, mullet-haired power ballads and stuff. Couldn't Dwight Yoakam (who plays the kid's scary father) tell 'em what it was like?? Wait a sec, I've just remembered they talk about the Shuttle tragedy happening the year before at some point! So it was really meant to be 1987!! But that really wasn't the main problem. I could overlook this if the film was any good, but it wasn't. Not funny, not poignant, the usual unbelievable character development arc, really it was practically as bad as "I Love You Beth Cooper". So if you loved that movie, by all means check this one out. In that movie I'd sat through it all because Hayden Panettiere is nice to look at, this one I sat through because Juno Temple is nice to look at (I'm an old man... but she is hot). Only reason. But even her little outfits with the shorts - even those were completely anachronistic... who the hell wore hot pants like that in 1987?? NOBODY. Certainly not the school hottie. The good cast had also fooled me. I don't know why William H Macy or Mary Steenburgen would attach their reputation to a film like this... I just don't get it. Maybe they wanted to be politically correct or something.The movie is very short, thankfully. But that meant that any character development was too fast and unrealistic and totally non-moving (again, pretty much like "I Love You Beth Cooper"... which was even worse than this, though). I was so expecting the kid to turn up and sing at the end, that erased any chance of me getting moved - and I love being moved, I love cheesiness, so it wasn't that either. It was just a flat, annoying movie. The fact that it was competently shot and acted only makes it worse, in my opinion, because then you wonder why they got it all so wrong. I mean, going back to the time setting... I'm all for stratification in movies, those movies where it's all from the year they're set in are silly too, as if everything from previous years disappeared... But this was too much in the other sense. Really absurd. The tone was just all wrong, incongruously going from gross-out humour-like moments, to soppy tear-jerking ones that didn't elicit any emotion from me, and I cry at any old schmaltz. As a comparison, I'd loved Napoleon Dynamite, I think they got that just right, the tone and everything, and I was moved at that! I gave it 1/10 because of Juno Temple. And I guess I must've chuckled maybe twice. Otherwise it'd be a zero... despite the professional cinematography and the acting. The soundtrack was also meh. If they were that backward in Normal, they'd have had more mainstream tastes in 80's pop music. But I guess rights to Madonna songs are more expensive. Oh if you're a foot fetishist, you'll like a completely gratuitous scene where Juno sticks her feet up to the camera and paints her nails, a really long, pointless shot. Worse than Tarantino! Milla Jovovich was pretty good, too, but it's depressing to me that now she plays the mother. I feel old. Note to self: stop watching teenage movies...