Review of All the Real Girls (2003) by Cory T — 23 Jun 2008

There are moments, in (hopefully) everyone's cinematic experience, where they find themselves so invested in characters that they want to finish their sentences because they sincerely want the story to turn out a certain way. It sounds silly put into a sentence, I guess, but this feeling is simply something that is better experienced than explained.

In David Gordon Green's second film, "All the Real Girls", I found myself doing that a lot. I had fallen completely in love with these characters: their ability to make mistakes, their inability to accurately explain themselves sometimes, their willingness to change for an emotion that is new and startling, and the way they immerse themselves in little moments of perfect simplicity that seems almost impossible to be scripted. Take, for instance, the opening scene between Paul Schneider and Zooey Deschanel. They are standing awkwardly in front of one another, seemingly about to burst with emotion, but trying their best to wait for the other person to move first. She asks, "Why haven't you kissed me yet?" He responds, with painful honesty, "Cause... I'm scared, I guess." When you first kiss someone, and it is mutually felt and wanted, a spark ignites. Whether we may want it to or not, that spark rarely ever goes away. To lighten the situation, Zooey suggests he kiss her on the inside of her hand. The intimacy and subtle perfection in that entire scene had me hooked on these characters from start to finish.

Oh, the dialogue in this movie could not be more perfect. I have to give you my favorite line: "I just want to make sure that a million years from now I can still see you up close and still have things to say." I'll admit to being a little breathless after that exchange. These people are so real, so ordinary; they aren't operating out of a plot-box cooked up with a revision of a similar story. This feels like the camera simply submersed itself into these people's lives, portaling their struggles to us.

One character gets his heart broken, momentarily, and in a bout of irrational angst he screams, "If anybody ever smiles at me again, I'm gonna freak out!".

It seems silly, but I am almost shocked that these are characters someone constructed. Rarely EVER do stories, conversations, and scenes unfold the way they do in this film. The actors never rush their lines, speaking slowly and stumbling over words, further creating a sense of realism like their character is just then coming up with what to say.

This movie won the Jury Prize for Emotional Truth at Sundance in 2003, and I don't think a more appropriate award could have fitted this film's accomplishment. Although it is five years old now, it is undoubtedly one of the best films I have seen all year... and may likely ever see.

I'll leave you with my two other favorite lines of dialogue that stand on their own just as poignantly as they do in the context of their respective scenes:

"I'll miss your face.".

"You're the first person I wanted to tell that to, 'cause you're the first person I've wanted to talk to for more than five minutes... ever.".