All the Real Girls (2003, David Gordon Green) (Patreon)

73/100

Third viewing (last seen 2003), no change. I didn't review it professionally at the time, because it opened the same week as Gerry and my Time Out New York colleague snapped it up. (We alternated picks.) Kept it succinct on my website, too:

Thoroughly terrific movie, but I don't really have much to say about it—Green works the same mythopoetic vein of expressionistic naturalism (or is it naturalistic expressionism? it is, isn't it?) that distinguished George Washington, while Zooey Deschanel confirms my suspicion, first entertained following her too-brief fly-by in Almost Famous, that no human attribute is as arresting as tremulous self-possession. (Paul Schneider tries hard but can't quite keep up.) Veers into exasperating preciousness at times—"...and I was so happy I invented peanut butter"?—but that seems an acceptable price to pay for its woozy, shamelessly earnest romanticism.

"Arthouse Nicholas Sparks" didn't occur to me then, as The Notebook (movie version, which is what put Sparks on my radar) was still a year away, but that's what struck me forcefully this time. Not in a derogatory way, either. Granted, the story's much plainer than Sparks' tend to be—its only complications are Tip's protectiveness toward his sister (speedily resolved) and Noel's infidelity—but it's hard to think of another recent indie film that's so utterly in thrall to one couple's raw feelings for each other, expressed without the usual scrim of self-protective banter. I hereby withdraw my previous criticism of Schneider (strictly relative to Deschanel though it was), who's refreshingly unconcerned with looking traditionally masculine; not many young actors would have been willing to play it bashful standing in front of a girl in his underwear, or do that bowling-alley pose in which Paul hugs Noel's waist, bent over, while she remains fully upright, caressing his back. Some of the improv clangs a bit (particularly when Noel confesses her transgression), but that's offset by an overall sense of carefully heightened authenticity—one that even extends to Danny McBride, who's never been better than he was in this, his very first onscreen role. (Though the DVD reveals that some of his goofier bits were left on the cutting-room floor. Thankful that Green kept Bust-Ass pivoting from "Who's your #2 choice for boyfriend in town?" to "Okay, if you had to choose would you fuck me or a priest?") Surprised I didn't complain in '03 about the clichéd symbolic haircut, or lament the absence of a stronger ending. Then again, maybe I get it. When a film is this emotionally unguarded, taking even minor shots at it seems kinda cruel.