The Good Girl

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The Good Girl
Good girl poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Miguel Arteta
Produced by Matthew Greenfield
Written by Mike White
Starring Jennifer Aniston
Jake Gyllenhaal
John C. Reilly
Tim Blake Nelson
Zooey Deschanel
Mike White
Music by Tony Maxwell
James O'Brien
Mark Orton
Joey Waronker
Cinematography Enrique Chediak
Edited by Jeff Betancourt
Production
company
Myriad Pictures
Flan de Coco Films
Distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures
Release dates
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  • August 7, 2002 (2002-08-07)
(Limited)
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  • August 30, 2002 (2002-08-30)
Running time
93 minutes[1]
Country United States
Language English
Budget $8 million[1]
Box office $16.9 million[1]

The Good Girl is a 2002 comedy-drama film directed by Miguel Arteta from a script by Mike White, and stars Jennifer Aniston, Jake Gyllenhaal and John C. Reilly.

Plot

Justine Last (Jennifer Aniston) is a depressed and unmotivated thirty-year-old woman living in a small town in Texas with her husband Phil (John C. Reilly), a house painter who spends most of his free time smoking marijuana with his best friend, Bubba (Tim Blake Nelson). Justine works at Retail Rodeo, the local big-box store, along with Cheryl (Zooey Deschanel), a cynical, plain-spoken teenager, Gwen (Deborah Rush), a ditzy older woman who manages the cosmetics counter, and Corny (Mike White), a highly religious security guard.

One morning, Justine notices a new cashier and later introduces herself. Holden (Jake Gyllenhaal) appears quiet and reserved, qualities that the two of them share and, therefore, quickly take a liking to one another. They begin taking their lunch breaks together and Justine gives Holden rides home. One time, he invites her in and she accepts. They swap stories about their lives including how Justine feels unappreciated by Phil and Holden tells her of his obsession with J. D. Salinger's novel, The Catcher in the Rye, from where he got his name.

As the weeks go by, Justine and Holden start to bring out the best in each other. But when Holden makes a pass at her, she rejects him, leaving him dismayed. He becomes more and more besotted by her. Some time later, Holden does not show up to work but sends a letter to Justine, writing that if she does not meet him at 5pm that day behind the nearest Chuck E. Cheese, she will never see him again. After much consideration, Justine decides to accept Holden's invitation, only to be intercepted by her manager, Jack (John Carroll Lynch), who insists that she take a very ill Gwen to the hospital. Justine then meets up with Holden. The two have sex for the first time in a motel room that Justine pays for with her credit card.

As the affair continues, Justine's marriage to Phil starts to slowly deteriorate. One night, Justine spots Bubba's truck in the parking lot of the motel where they've been meeting at. She becomes convinced that Bubba knows, telling Holden that they need to cool down for a while. Holden accepts Justine's decision. When Justine goes to visit Gwen in the hospital, she is told that Gwen has died after contracting parasites from eating poisionous blackberries that she bought at a roadside fruit stand. When she returns home, Bubba starts hinting to Justine that he knows about her affair with Holden. Feeling guilty, Justine suggests that she and Phil should attend church, but when they go, Justine spots the motel desk clerk, so creates a diversion and they leave.

Justine speaks to Holden in private at work the following day, explaining that what they're doing is wrong and she can't see him in that way anymore. Bubba tells Justine to meet him at his house. He blackmails her into sleeping with him by threatening to tell Phil about her affair if she refuses, and she reluctantely gives into his demands. Holden, who has been following her since the split, sees them through a window.

Holden does not show up for work the next day but is waiting in Justine's car when her shift ends. He drunkenly demands an apology. Justine becomes desperate to extricate herself from the affair completely. She goes to talk to his parents and tells them that he is mentally ill and has imagined a romantic liaison between them. She goes on to suggest that Holden be hospitalized. That night after feeling unwell all day, Justine takes a pregnancy test. The results are positive. Phil is over the moon but Justine feels uneasy since she doesn't know who is the father is.

The next day when Justine arrives at work, Cheryl tells her that someone stole fifteen thousand dollars from the safe and that the police suspect Holden. Justine is called into Jack's office and interrogated about their relationship. As she leaves for lunch, Justine encounters Holden who brags about having stolen the money and about his plans for them to escape. Holden tells her to meet her the following morning at a hotel. When Justine gets home, Phil, Bubba, and his new girlfriend are all waiting for her so they can celebrate. The phone rings and Phil answers. The doctor's office has called; they tell Phil his sperm in "no good". He tells them his wife is pregnant and they don't know what they are talking about and angrily hangs up. Bubba assures Phil they made a mistake, that "they don't know everything". Phil then questions aloud if this means Justine isn't pregnant. She also assures Phil that they made a mistake.

The next morning Justine quickly packs a suitcase. While waiting at the light, she begins to assess her choices and decides she has no future with Holden. She arrives at Retail Rodeo and makes a beeline for her manager's office. She tells him where Holden is hiding and how long he will be there. He tells Justine she did good; she's a good girl. After arriving home, she watches a news report saying that the police have surrounded the hotel where Holden is staying and that Holden killed himself. The next day, Bubba shows up at Retail Rodeo and tells Justine that Phil opened a statement from the credit card company, which listed the motel that Justine paid for with the card. Bubba then begs Justine not to tell Phil about their sexual encounter. When Justine arrives home, Phil is looking at the credit card statement and tearfully asks Justine if she has been having an affair. After saying, "yes", Phil strikes Justine underneath her eye. Later, Phil expresses remorse at hitting his wife and asked her if the baby is his. Wanting to spare Phil anymore pain and protect herself, she tells him, yes, it is his baby. Phil insists on knowing who she had an affair with. When Justine says it doesn't matter, Phil concludes it's Corny, the security guard that invited them to Bible study. When Justine arrives at work the next, Cheryl attempts to cover up her facial bruise with make-up and Corny walks by. His arm is in a cast and his face beat up. Cheryl informs Justine two guys with face masks on jumped him last night and pummeled him.

As the movie concludes, Justine is still employed at Retail Rodeo. In a narrated scene, Phil brings the baby to Justine who is deep in thought on the bed. We don't know if the baby belongs to Phil or Holden. She lovingly holds the baby and the couple seem blissful.

Cast

Critical reception

The Good Girl was well received by most critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 81% of 156 critics gave the film a positive review, for an average rating of 6.9/10. The site's consensus states that "A dark dramedy with exceptional performances from Jennifer Aniston and Jake Gyllenhaal, The Good Girl is a moving and astute look at the passions of two troubled souls in a small town."[2]

Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a "generally favorable" average score of 71, based on 35 reviews.[3]

Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half stars and also praised Aniston's performance, and saying The Good Girl is an "independent film of satiric fire and emotional turmoil".[4]

Aniston's performance

  • Elvis Mitchell : "It's Ms. Aniston who surprises in The Good Girl. In some ways she may feel as trapped as Justine by playing Rachel Green, the poor little rich daddy's girl of television's Friends. She comes up with an inventively morose physicality for Justine: her arms hang at her sides as though shackled; they're not limp appendages but weighed down with unhappiness. The plucky dream girls she's played in movies like the underseen 1999 classic Office Space are expressive and given to anxious displays of hand waving. But here she articulates Justine's sad tales through a narration that's as affected and misery laden as Holden's ragged, ripped-off fiction. This tone extends to her voice-over, which is sodden and exhausted, as if she is unable to rouse herself from the torpor within her head. Ms. Aniston provides a gentle, thoughtful performance, just as last season in Friends she gave Rachel a thorny, hard-won maturity and did her best work on the show; it's been a very good year for her." [5]
  • Steve Rhodes : " Jennifer Aniston delivers an incredible, amazing performance against type, as a severely depressed woman stuck in an unhappy marriage. Her bitterly sad character really got to me, so much so that I'd love to see Aniston receive an Oscar nomination for her performance." [6]
  • Geoffrey Kleinman : "There are two things which make The Good Girl work so well: the fantastic script by Mike White, which is smart, funny and honest, and the breakout performance by Jennifer Aniston who simply embodies her character. Whether or not you are a fan of Aniston, you'll appreciate a look at the real depth she has as an actress and I hope to see her in more films that challenge her as an actress." [7]
  • Ella Taylor : "QUEEN OF THE WORLD'S MOST CHIPPER SITUATION comedy, Jennifer Aniston doesn't immediately spring to mind as a resident of Raymond Carver country. Yet Aniston has played working-class heroines before, and rather well. As a put-upon young wife in Edward Burns' She's the One, she showed a sturdy, forthright incorruptibility that lit up an otherwise slight movie. Brad and her size-4 body notwithstanding, Aniston's glamour isn't sexual -- she's a Breck girl who can slip into ordinariness without the self-importance so many pretty actresses wheel out for the down-home, "plucky" roles that boost their résumés. It's impossible not to like Aniston, and equally impossible not to wish her likability would show a little wear and tear. Which makes it especially gratifying to see her play a woman who's had it up to here with making nice, and making do." [8]
  • Bill Muller : "Aniston rises to the level of the material, creating a character of remarkable breadth and depth." [9]
  • Roger Ebert : "After languishing in a series of overlooked movies that ranged from the entertaining ("Office Space") to the disposable ("Picture Perfect"), Jennifer Aniston has at last decisively broken with her "Friends" image in an independent film of satiric fire and emotional turmoil. It will no longer be possible to consider her in the same way. In "The Good Girl," she plays Justine, a desperately bored clerk at Retail Rodeo, a sub-Kmart where the customers are such sleepwalkers they don't even notice when the "Attention, Shoppers!" announcements are larded with insults and nonsense." [10]
  • James Berardinelli : "For Jennifer Aniston, this is clearly an attempt to escape the Friends typecasting. Her performance is forceful and effective - she effortlessly submerges herself into the role, and, after only a moment's hesitation, Aniston has vanished and all that's left is lonely, trapped Justine. " [11]

Accolades

Award Category Recipient Result
Film Independent Spirit Awards Best Film The Good Girl Nominated
Best Screenplay Mike White Won
Best Female Lead Jennifer Aniston Nominated
Best Supporting Male John C. Reilly Nominated
Online Film Critics Society Best Actress Jennifer Aniston Nominated
Satellite Award Best Actress – Motion Picture Jennifer Aniston Nominated
Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture John C. Reilly Nominated
Hollywood Film Awards Hollywood Actress Award Jennifer Aniston Won
Teen Choice Awards Choice Movie Liar Jennifer Aniston Nominated
Choice Movie Liplock Jennifer Aniston Nominated
Choice Movie Breakout Star – Male Jake Gyllenhaal Won
Choice Movie Actress – Drama/Action Adventure Jennifer Aniston Nominated

References

External links