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What’s the Story?

Reviewed by Will Fertman

THE GOOD GIRL is a mature story about love and frustration with special appeal for fans (teenage and adult) of Jennifer Aniston. In a suburban Texas town, Justine (Anniston) works at the local Retail Rodeo. Her job is a bore, and her jerk of a husband (John C. Reilly) spends every afternoon stoned on the couch with his buddy (Tim Blake Nelson). Alienated from everyone, Justine thinks she's found a soulmate in Holden (Jake Gyllenhaal), the sulky new cashier at the Rodeo. He's really a writer, and he's named after the main character in Catcher in the Rye, and nobody understands him. That he's only 22 to Justine's 30 makes him all the more forbidden fruit, and they quickly start a torrid affair. But Justine has much more to lose than Holden, and as he becomes more and more needy, Justine finds herself forced to choose between her new love and the everyday life she finds slipping away.

Is It Any Good?

3

The Good Girl has both funny and touching moments; all the actors give very sharp performances with great dialogue, but the plot fails slightly at the end. If this movie is a parable about how the absolute, black and white beliefs of youth give way to mature compromise, the story itself should never just fade to an unsatisfying "realistic" gray.

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