Directed by David Gordon Green. 108 minutes.
Starring Paul Schneider, Zooey Deschanel, and Patricia Clarkson. Released by Sony Pictures Classics.
It has been a week for reticent, moody films. Just last
night, I saw Gerry, the new love it or hate it film from director Gus
Van Sant, and today I viewed the atmospheric and hypnotic All the Real Girls,
the second film from Texas director David Gordon Green, whose first film, George
Washington, about a group of young children who first witness and then
begin to cope with the death of one of their young friends over the course of a
summer. Green is amongst the new wave of directors arriving to the big screen
from
All the Real Girls unfolds for us, but not in any
sort of order, the relationship of Paul (Green’s close friend, Paul Schneider)
and Noel (Zooey Daschanel). When we first meet them, they are already standing
with one another as a couple, though, at points during the film, we witness
earlier moments when they are acquainted with one another. Paul is the best
friend of Noel’s brother, Tip, who is not keen on his sister dating his
compadre. Tip knows Paul’s ways, as do most everyone else in town. Noel, of
course, does not for she has recently returned from college for the summer to
their small
Paul lives at home with his mother, played by the wonderful Patricia Clarkson, who earns her pay by dressing up as a clown and performing for hospitalized children, and his bereaved uncle, whose wife died years before. Paul’s world and surroundings are a world of hurt and disappointment. He and his friends are, described by other characters, as the type who never leave town and never make much of themselves. His mother has obviously been through the wringer with men and has had no luck. His uncle mourns his wife. Tip finds out that he is going to be a father and realizes that, he himself, has never really grown up. Paul’s other friend, Bust-Ass, knows nothing of women, not even how to really converse with them. Paul finds a special connection with Noel, which, when going strong, puts hope in his life and when it fails, it devastates him. The film is presented in “pieces,” showing different moments in the course of their relationship as they get to know one another, fall apart, and then make attempts to reconcile and define their relationship.
Zooey Deschanel is really making a name for herself in small roles in good films. First, she was wonderful as Patrick Fugit’s sister in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous and then added some much needed humor to the melancholy atmosphere of Miguel Arteta’s The Good Girl as the “Cirque du Face” girl. In her first leading role, she gives a strong performance as Noel, a confused, but well-meaning girl who only fully realizes her emotions towards Paul when she has betrayed his trust. With wide, expressive eyes and a range for unique characters, Deschanel is an actress with a promising future. Paul Schneider, Green’s hometown friend, makes an impression as well as the lovelorn lothario Paul and has some earnest moments with Noel.
David Gordon Green, so far mostly working with miniscule budgets, very small stories, mostly nonprofessional casts, and fragmented storytelling techniques, makes films that are very cinematic. His cinematographer on this film, Tim Orr, gives the movie a beautiful, occasionally melancholy, and haunting look with a sad, moody autumnal feel, especially in a wonderful scene in which clouds swoop over the land in a series of shots nearly halfway through the film. With both All the Real Girls and George Washington, Green has evoked the spirit of Terrence Malick’s films to tell small, humane, and honest films. In George Washington, he captured the essence of childhood and the loss of innocence, while in his latest he rekindles in his audience the feelings of first love. Though not a perfect film (a final sequence in which Paul attempts to get his dog to swim in the local river comes off as a bit heavy-handed), Green has constructed a strong imperfect one that reflects the true spirit of young love- messy and heartfelt. Noel even tells Paul towards the end of the film “nobody said we had to be perfect.” All the Real Girls is a small film with a big heart.