Very Good Girls (2013)

"I just wanted to make you feel better. You liked him so much." Lilly (Fanning) and Gerri (Olsen) have been best friends for years and have just graduated high school. Both are on their way to college and neither want to go there as virgins. They decide to make a pact with each other that they will both lose it before they leave. Things are going along fine until they meet and start to like the same boy. This is a plot that has been done to death. Usually though the movie is a comedy and this is a drama. The one thing this does have going for it that the others don't is great actors. The acting alone is enough to keep this from becoming too cheesy or cookie-cutter like. The movie is very predictable and again is something you have seen a hundred times but Fanning and Olsen together are a great team. There are moments that make you cry and make you angry but overall this is a movie that will give you a good feeling. Overall a movie that who's plot has been done to death but the acting makes it feel fresh. A very good coming of age movie that teen girls should watch to show what is really important in life. I give this a high B+.

Fmovies: I was expecting much more from this than I got when I finished watching it.

Being a long time fan of Dakota Fanning, as I suspect her performances are far above the average from girls her age and especially from her era, I was very excited to see her in a more 'mature' type of movie.

Well, I can't really say I was disappointed with the acting from the cast. I guess even that guy who played the street artist was o.k. but I was not satisfied with the development of the film. The movie was slow and then when it was almost finishing they threw it all at once and maybe it was a ~surprising~ ending once I wasn't expecting it but I was not pleased as I thought it rather silly, to be quite honest.

They were dealing with an adult theme at first which requires an adult reaction from all of the circumstances dealt in the movie and then at the very ending of it they just decided to wrap it all up with a rather silly reaction from the characters so us 'the public/audience' would be happy and content. Just typically clichè Hollywood ending while I would have preferred a million times a more realistic type of closing I guess.

And I just say so because this looks to me as an Indie film in which we generally get a more human response to human emotions played on screen (as well as in foreign films).

Of course, I know the old saying 'you can't always get what you want' but I think it's unfair to the public if they promote the movie a certain way and the final result is completely different from that. I mean that even in what concerns the trailer, the poster, every single advertising thing they do. It just has to be fair to their final public otherwise you can't even trust the filmmakers anymore because they are obviously just thinking about an easy way to cash in at your expenses.

I can't really give you more details because I'd have to tell you how it ends but watch it if you really feel like, it's NOT a complete waste of time because as I've said the characters are well portrayed by the whole cast and I can positively say now that I'll keep looking for more Dakota Fanning and Liz Olsen works in the future, they are far above the average and always deserving a much larger recognition for their roles in almost everything they do. 6/10

Very Good Girls is the worst kind of film in the regard that its poster and trailer allude to the idea that it will be covering loftier subjects in the realm of teen angst, but it isn't until one finally sees the film that they realize that every preconceived notion they had about the film turned out to be a product of wishful, optimistic thinking. Very Good Girls is a tiresome retread of clichés and sterile filmmaking, one without wit or insight into the life of a teenager, and constructing characters out of thin, threadbare personality traits without ever giving them opportunities to expand into something greater.

It doesn't stop there; it also places two strong talents at the core of its mediocrity. One of whom is Elizabeth Olsen, who has been on a roll with such fantastic films that she really doesn't have time for a film like this. Alongside Olsen is Dakota Fanning, a considerably successful child actor who has had a rather rough time finding adult roles now that she has moved on from her childhood career. The two play best friends Lily and Gerry, both of whom home for one last summer in their homestate of New York. Upset that they are practically the only two people who still hold their virginity, they make a pact to lose it before leaving for college. After a day at the beach, they fall in love with the first guy they say, a misunderstood, crabby soul by the name of David (Boyd Holbrook) who, despite his surly attitude when they first meet, turns out to be a quietly romantic guy, who enjoys poetry. The two begin the long, tireless task of trying to maintain a relationship with this guy behind each others back, while occasionally returning home to fight or disagree with their parents, where the film misses another bold opportunity at characterization.

To begin with, we already know so desperately little about Lily or Gerry other than they're attractive, life-long collegians who are virgins and detest the fact they are virgins. Other than that, they are as vacant as characters can be, and given this film was written and directed by a female begs the question why Naomi Foner didn't take the route of humanizing her characters. In a sea of films that seem to get adolescents wrong, particularly the females, Foner had a chance to develop female characters rich with feelings and ideas, but instead opts for them to have nothing more on their mind than some personally-lacking blonde guy who they fall head over heals in lust with for reasons never truly outlined. If a male had written and directed this film, we'd be deploring every grating opportunity to simplify these characters into outlets striving for basic human gratification and nothing more.

As stated before, even Lily and Gerry's parents have no personality to speak of, with Lily's parents having a more hardened, regressive attitude and Gerry's being more loose and liberal. Conversations between the girls and their parents last for no longer than two minutes and bear nothing in the way of identification but rather patient-testing oversimplification. Nobody in this film has an identity, and as a film about the sexual awakening of two lifelong best friends, I don't think it's wrong to expect a film that would be something in the way of deep and contemplative.

Very Good Girls is, in some ways, a poor man's version of the brilliant Norwegian film Turn Me On, Dammit!, which concerned a fifteen-year-old girl experiencing a rampant sexual awakening, full of dirty fantasies and prolific masturbation. The

Very Good Girls fmovies. In one word: pretentious!

I don't know why every screen writer thinks that only screwed up people deserve to be the focus of a story or that they are the only ones troubled by the challenges and hardships of life; it's banal, predictable and trite.

I also do not understand why depth of character in movies is inextricably linked to quiet, antisocial, weird or quirky characters that exist in the outskirts of society, preferably with an artistic streak.

There was a lot of still frame so that the focus was on the characters and a discrete music carpet which I'm guessing was to convey the characters' emotional turmoil or something...but the thing is that the characters' weren't strong enough for all this.

Fanning's character was very unlikable. Her relationship with David wasn't very convincing, nor was her friendship with Olsen's character.

No matter how good Fanning is she can't carry an entire movie by herself (and she wasn't very good in this one) and while Elizabeth Olsen's acting was amazing she wasn't given enough screen time.

Fanning's portrayal of Lilly was so stiff. She was like an emotionless doll for the most time, and when she reacted I couldn't understand or relate. Why was Lilly so angry and distant with her mother? I didn't see her do anything wrong. Why didn't she even try to support or understand her? Why was Lilly so close with her father? How come she forgave him his transgression just like that? It felt like Lilly had lost her grip with reality, especially when she was mad because her father was trying to resolve his marital problems with his wife instead of doing as his daughter asked.

She was lying and misleading her best friend and she was petty and vengeful with David. There is nothing great about this character and Fanning's portrayal of her was like she was dead inside. Seriously, it was scary.

Olsen was amazing though!! She did an ingratiate job with Gerri!! Loved her to bits and I hope she was more in the movie. Olsen is scary good with character driven parts.

Another problem with this movie was the dialog. It was scarce and weak. In a movie where there is no action, no complicated plot or twists but it's all about a person's journey it feels like there should have been stronger dialog.

First-time directors don't typically draw a cast with this much potential and talent. For Very Good Girls, Naomi Foner has managed to snag two of the hottest young actresses in the business right now - Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen - and surrounded them with the likes of Richard Dreyfuss, Demi Moore, Ellen Barkin and Clark Gregg. The more cynical among us would put this casting coup down to Foner's Hollywood connections: she's penned a few screenplays in her time, but is best known as the mother of thespian siblings Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal. It's a shame that the final product doesn't dispel these suspicions. The film's awkward love/lust triangle never really convinces, and Very Good Girls spends most of its running time meandering aimlessly through the lives of characters who remain stubbornly opaque and unlikeable.

Lilly (Fanning) and Gerry (Olsen) are best friends who've grown up together, taking refuge in each other's houses when life gets too complicated in their own homes. It's their final summer together, and both girls make a pact to lose their virginity before Lilly goes off to college. Enter David (Boyd Holbrook), an artist who enchants both girls with his good looks and charm. As Gerry develops an outsized crush on David, Lilly plunges into a relationship with him - one that she awkwardly keeps a secret from her best friend. When tragedy strikes, Lilly is overcome by guilt, and the life-long friendship that binds the two girls together is sorely tested.

The trouble with Very Good Girls is that it's built around a tired old trope - two girls fight and fall out over the love of one guy - but fails to find anything refreshing to say about it. Foner's screenplay, for all that it's written by a woman, gives little to no real insight into either girl. Lilly, in particular, feels like a hollow shell drifting through the paces of her narrative, never really connecting with either David or her sketchy, amorous boss Fitzsimmons (Peter Sarsgaard - Foner's son-in-law). It doesn't help that David, as played by the stoically colourless Holbrook, is a walking cliché - in a scene meant to pass for deeply romantic, he actually makes Lilly read him poetry by Sylvia Plath in his dingy artist's loft.

Far more interesting are the home lives Foner has constructed around the two girls. Lilly struggles to come to terms with her father Edward (Gregg) cheating on her uptight mother Norma (Barkin), and migrates to Gerry's considerably more cheery, argumentative home, presided over by the loving but loud Danny (Dreyfuss) and Kate (Moore). There's so much more here to be explored: the way the two families intersect, and how these connections feed into the girls' friendship, lives and personalities. Unfortunately, Foner shoves it all into the background, focusing instead on the unfortunate love/lust triangle that's sprung up around Lilly, Gerry and David.

Foner's cast is, at least, worth the watch, although they don't quite manage to completely salvage the film or their characters. Fanning plays Lilly as tremulously lost, and Olsen lends her own charms to an otherwise paper-thin character who feels more like a plot device than a person. Barkin comes off best out of the entire adult cast, unearthing a little of the sorrow that haunts a woman whose husband has been conducting an affair in their own home.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who watches Very Good Girls that the movie was written twenty years ago. In ma

Very Good Girls has somehow managed to get a truly noteworthy and remarkable cast in spite of being a most mediocre, humdrum and unremarkable film itself.

The movie is about two best girl friends during their last summer together in New York before they go off to two different colleges in the fall. As the title implies, they've been "Very Good Girls" in high school and are not overly experienced in some aspects of life making them conclude that they should lose their virginity before heading off to school. Their friendship is tested over the summer by various things -- work, family, uncertainty, tragedy -- but most of all by their mutual attraction to a handsome street artist they meet and befriend.

Dakota Fanning (I Am Sam) and Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene) play besties Lily and Gerry with Boyd Holbrook (Milk) playing their object of affection who ends up favoring one of the girls to the other. Fanning and Olsen are two of the best young working actresses in Hollywood today and I do not question their talent at all; but Olsen's five year age differential is highly apparent here making the casting in this film ever-so-slightly distracting. Richard Dreyfus (Jaws), Ellen Barkin (Sea of Love), Clark Gregg (The Avengers) and Demi Moore (Ghost) play parents of the two girls while Peter Sarsgaard (An Education) co-stars as Lily's boss and Kiernan Shipka (Sally in 'Mad Men') as her younger sister.

The first-time director, Naomi Foner, just happens to be the mother of the Gyllenhaal siblings (Jake and Maggie) which most likely helps explain why this talented cast (Sarsgaard is Foner's son-in-law) signed onto such a pedestrian, over-done script.

The story is nothing special -- and has been told many times -- but the acting in Very Good Girls is "Very Good" and solid. Everyone involved here is singularly better than the film as a whole.