Jennifer Aniston Oscar Worthy in The Good Girl
Miguel Arteta's 2002 Film Shows Friend's Actors Film Potential
Apr 17, 2009
The Good Girl, a Fox Searchlight and Myriad Picture production was released to little fanfare in 2002 and was viewed by many as an independent production. Starring alongside the aforementioned Aniston, were the little known and , yet to be loved, media-darlings - Jake Gyllenhaal, John C. Reilly and Zooey Deschanel, who respectively play paramour, husband and associate to Aniston's character "Justine".
Media Promotion Lost Focus of Movie and Effort of Actors
Touted as her attempt to break from television acting into a film star, the movie was promoted in a purposefully small way in order for Aniston to safely transition roles as an actress. This move not only negated what is Aniston's brilliant work, but for all intents and purposes, buried one of the greatest movies to have been made in the last decade.
Aniston Captures What Appears to be the Anti-Thesis of Herself
In The Good Girl , Aniston, playing a married thirty-something woman, dutifully fulfilling her role in the world via retail sales and Kmart pants, captures brilliantly the hate-filled world of the "satisfied" that so many understand.
Plumbing depths that most in the public assume to be unknown to the rich and famous, Aniston captures the feelings of isolation and an invisible apathy.
Coming from a Hollywood background, Aniston certainly doesn't carry the kind of rags to riches persona that other actors have promoted in their backgrounds. Aniston has never alluded to living in a car, waiting desperately for her big break. She hasn't, at least in the public spotlight, ever been known to be more than an affluent student of her mother and father, both small-time actors in their own right. So how does Aniston capture a down-trodden, plain and disillusioned pedestrian? The only answer is by high-caliber acting.
From her shuffled feet as she walks to and from her cashier job at the local retail store, to her tight-lipped internal suffering at her lot in life, Aniston, as "Justine" nails the woman you know down the street, in the supermarket, possibly yourself. From body language alone, Aniston conveys a broken spirit. She manages, with great restraint, to capture the hardest emotion to put on film -apathy. The inner angst of "Justine" is just as subtlety played by Aniston.
Film Captures Torment of Surburbia and the Human Condition
The Good Girl is a tale of desperation in suburban normalcy - an American Beauty meets Gummo. While the film follows some typical themes of alienation and stagnation, it manages to rise above its' own premise and move almost heart-breakingly into documentary style viewing.
"Justine" should be satiated with her husband, her job and her world but wonders why she might "go to the grave with lives unlived" still running through her veins.
Justine's likeable but forgettable husband, played by Reilly, cannot be faulted for her angst, nor can her job, which others around her seem to find satisfying. So what is the elusive need of Justine? What is the tonic for her apathy, her near-tantrum hold on anger and disillusionment?
It's a question for the ages and therefore a movie that will stand the test of time.
The Good Girl asks "when everything seems so fine, why are we all so blue?"
Are we, as human beings, in any situation, any variation, any station, ever satiated? Can there be true complacency? True happiness? Or does every decision we make or change we attempt to find, only lead us down another winding road with ever more forks? A road from which we all may never know the true path. A road we cannot travel again or change direction, but walk alone unguided.
The writers, producers and stars of The Good Girl do not pretend to have the answers, anymore than we do. It only leaves us watching a version of ourselves, befuddled and unsure. It leaves us in the same harsh reality we came into before being entertained, the true mark of a classic film.
