Jennifer Aniston Movie:

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Editorial Review:
Jennifer Aniston gives a career-changing performance in The Good Girl, a movie that questions whether goodness is a virtue or a trap. Justine (Aniston), weary of her dead-end retail job and her childless marriage to Phil (John C. Reilly), diverts herself with a new coworker named Holden (Jake Gyllenhaal), who feels as ill-treated by his life as Justine does with hers. The empathy between them leads, all too quickly, to an affair--which just as quickly turns into an obsession that threatens to destroy Justine's marriage. But this is only the beginning; Phil's buddy Bubba (Tim Blake Nelson), the store security guard (Mike White), and a handful of other characters all have a part to play in the unraveling of Justine's life. The script and performances of The Good Girl are subtle but vivid, and the movie's emotional impact will linger long after the movie is over. --Bret Fetzer

The Good Girl [Region 2] Reviews:
Rednecks and a pathetic life
2009-10-08 - I wasn't crazy about this movie. It's more like an exploration of desperate people in a pathetic part of rural America. It's about how all the people in this situation can't escape from their situation. The plot involves Jennifer Aniston's attempt to find love through a crazy affair and find a new life. Sometimes though it gets a bit too depressing.

The acting isn't great. Jennifer Aniston tries to come across as a redneck with a southern accent, but just sounds odd. Jake Gyllenhaal is a bit too odd and psychotic. Oddly enough, I thought John C. Reilly, otherwise known for playing moronic clowns (like Step Brothers), actually fits his role really well.

An interesting take on modern existential angst.
2009-06-18 - The Good Girl / B0000797IO

Although I wasn't certain if I'd like "The Good Girl", I definitely felt a resonance with Aniston's character Justine, as she struggles with being stuck seemingly indefinitely in a rut of existential angst. This sort of modern existential angst of being stuck in a life that you didn't intend to choose, of having missed opportunities for something more or better (education, work, or spouse), and of never seeing any end or change in sight is something that many people recognize and can identify with, particularly anyone who has worked at a low-level, minimum-wage, customer service type position.

Whereas movies like Employee of the Month make light of this angst as the characters maintain sanity by choosing to not take life too seriously, "The Good Girl" hits closer to home by emphasizing that, for many people, this way of life is a matter of survival, not of frivolity. Indeed, Justine would fit in easily in Nickel and Dimed, as she struggles to work up the energy through her depression to come to work every day, because the money isn't going to come in from anywhere else - certainly not from her frequently-stoned, unreliable oaf of a husband. Out of desperation and boredom, Justine agrees to an affair with younger co-worker "Holden" (self-named for the main character in The Catcher in the Rye), who not-so-subtly begins to spiral into madness like his unfortunate namesake.

Here is where the movie gets full points for sheer realism. Justine realizes that there is no bright, explosive, happy ending waiting for her and Holden. They are not Bonnie and Clyde, and even while Justine may passionately dream of living a different life as someone else, somewhere else, she recognizes with the maturity of her years that life just doesn't work that way. Holden burns out with the ferocity of youth and Justine returns, resigned and likely still depressed, to her life of drudgery, only slightly relieved by the knowledge that her husband is as depressed with life as herself and not a 'mindless cow'.

Though I felt this movie was a realistic portrayal of modern existential angst and disillusionment, and though I appreciated the movie for espousing the sad truth that Justine really *is* trapped in her situation, or at least one very like it even if she moved away from that particular town, job, and husband, I can't say that I "enjoyed" the movie in the strictest sense of the word. I appreciate harsh truths and painful realities, and the courage it took to convey them in this well acted, carefully produced movie, but I can't imagine ever wanting to sit down and watch it again and it certainly isn't a cheerful movie by any stretch. I would definitely recommend that everyone see this movie once, but I wouldn't expect anyone to want to see it again. Sometimes the truth just hurts too much.

3 stars out of 4
2009-06-10 - The Bottom Line:

A successful but ultimately rather forgettable independent film which wisely dials down the "quirky" factor in order to focus on characters rather than contrived situations, The Good Girl is a decent movie, nothing more: watch it if you like the actors in it.

"The difficulty in life is the choice"-George Moore
2009-01-08 - Poor, pitiful Justine (Jennifer Aniston) works her days away in a dreary predictable discount store and returns home at day's end to her painter husband and his slimy sidekick, who together spend their nights ensconced on the couch smoking dope and watching mindless television. We see in her listless, slumped shoulder walk the look of desperation and resignation. How can we feel anything but empathy and pity for Justine, for the life to which she has been condemned? Is the director making us a witness to yet another yarn about the stifling dullness and persistent hopelessness of the small town cocoon?

One day out of the fog of dreariness and predictability a new male employee at Justine's place of employment catches her eye. The young man, who is roughly 9 years her junior, is, as we discover, a candidate in good standing for bipolar poster child of the year. The young man has shed his "Slave Name" Tom and adopted the name of Holden, because he sees himself as the embodiment of the main character in Catcher in the Rye. Justine is attracted to his impetuous and flamboyant personality, because she sees in him an escape from her horrid dull life. As the relationship develops and moves from the mental and spiritual to the physical, Justine withdrawals more and more from her friends and responsibilities. She and her beau nouveau are lost in each other and the possibility of a better life somewhere else. All is going swimmingly until Justine and her Holden are discovered by Justine's husband's sidekick as they emerge from the hotel room after one of their romps in their field of dreams. Things get very complicated after that.

As a result of being found out Justine is forced to make other compromises to hide the extent of her relationship with Holden. This is very taxing for Justine and at one time she even considers religion as an answer to her dilemma. Holden also becomes very upset when he discovers some of what Justine has done to cover up their dalliances. To the very end Justine makes decisions and lies to protect herself, while Holden tragically disappears from the picture.

What is the lesson, message or insight that we the viewer should take away from this movie. At first glance it seems a simple tale about the consequences of the choices we make in life. Each step we take will to a great extent determine what the next step after that will be. After letting this movie run around in my head for a few days, I have decided that the Good Girl is perhaps the psychological dialectic to the Garden of Eden story. In Eden, Adam and Eve had everything they needed to make them happy and in The Good Girl, Justine and Holden believed that because of where they lived and how they lived that they had nothing of what they needed to make them happy, to fulfill there dreams. Out of these two different worlds, one full of hope and one, from full of despair we see the rise of the same human impulse to break away, to change, even though, the provocations that engendered the need to change things were different, both Adam and Eve and Justine and Holden had to change because the sameness of their lives was too stifling. Perhaps the lesson is that it is ok to break away, to explore more deeply that which makes us human, but do so with your eyes open. Who knows? maybe God wanted Adam and Eve to leave Eden. Perhaps the lesson is that what we don't have always looks more appealing and feels more desirable than what we do have, and the key is not getting what we want but wanting what we have. In both cases, I think we do have a choice, and for that, we are always responsible.



Jennifer Aniston like I've never seen her before
2008-12-12 - THE GOOD GIRL is a bitter sweet movie with Jennifer Anniston like I've never seen her before, since she plays a bright, but down on her luck lady having marital problems with her pot addict husband(John C. Reilly) putting Justine(Jenn Anniston)in a "No win" situation prompting Justine to fall for a young sleazy troubled youngman(Holden)at his sexual peak giving her the attention & intimacy that her husband is failing to give her causing Nina to become co-dependent on Holden as a substitute for her disorganized husband(Phil), starting out with a steamy stunning sex scene with Holden in the hotel room when Justine seduces Holden for the first time showing Jennifer Anniston like I've never seen her before.

Fortunately, this movie ends up having a happy ending when Justine decides to dump Holden and reconcile with Phil(John C. Reilly)who decides to take over a new leaf and make a new start with Justine when they both discover that Justine is pregnant with his child.