OTHER TITLES: MEN (Original USA title); GIRL TALK, SOME GIRLS (France), FETELE AU CUVANTUL (Romanian title); SUM GIRL (Phonetic Japanese title); SOMETHING ABOUT THE GIRLS (Russian title); A GIRL (Chinese/Mandarin); HVILKEN PIGE! (WHAT KIND OF CHICK!)(Danish Title); Jakaœ dziewczyna (Polish for INNOCENT GIRL); CONVERSA DE MIUDAS (Portugues for SHE SPEAKS BY MINUTES); Vain yksi tyttö (Finnish for JUST A GIRL); Minden csak a szex (Hungarian for EVERYTHING IS ABOUT SEX)
WARNING: SPOILERS
SOME GIRL is one of those rare movies that make you "dig". Every time I watch it, I am frustrated with certain characters and situations. I want to know "Why" someone did something and "Why" this or that didn't work out. This film may seem very shallow, filled with undeveloped or two dimensional characters to some viewers, but I can't agree with them. I think Marissa Ribisi, who came up with this story and co-wrote it, intended for viewers to care about the characters and WANT to know "Why". I also think the viewer is supposed to do what I'm about to do: analyze and make theories. I sound completely ridiculous but it's true. I learn something NEW about a character or a situation each and every time I see this little gem on late night cable. And since the cable version is CLOSED CAPTIONED I understand this movie that much better than I used to.
There are four girls and four guys in this story about a bunch of Los Angelenos who seem to be looking for love and stability and finding just about everything BUT love and stability. It's a story that captures two weeks, two weeks before Halloween night to be exact, in the personal lives of these seven people, all of whom are trying to make it in show biz in some way.
Claire (Marissa Ribisi) is a girl who lives in a nice house with her dad and his girlfriend and her little brother Mike. Claire doesn't seem to have a steady nine to five job, but she seems to have a talent for poems and poetry and likes to perform for whoever will listen, be it patrons in a nightclub or her brothers. She's between boyfriends at the moment, but she would rather not be. Every time she thinks she's found Mr. Right, someone for her to have a real, monogamous romance with, he's gone within a week or two. Claire is very attractive, flaming red hair, poreclain skin, a nice figure. One other thing: Claire also drinks. She starts her mornings with gin and tonic and doesn't stop, not even after the sun goes down. You'll find that in each and every moment we spend with Claire, she is either drinking, drunk or battling a vicious hangover.
Her friend April (Juliette Lewis) also drinks, heavily, and even though she has a devoted guy named Neal (Michael Rapaport) who would give her the shirt off his back if she needed it and who regularly goes out of his way to pick her up from the houses of men she has gone home and had sex with, April lives as though Neal doesn't exist. Should you need it spelled out more plainly, April is very promiscuous, even more so than Claire, who herself has probably been through at least half a dozen failed relationships in the past year. April also gives you the impression that she just doesn't give a damn. She likes to have fun and gets angry at anyone who questions that fact. She likes sex and has obviously chucked the idea of monogamy and seems not to care that she is hurting Neal and putting his health in danger. Shoot, she doesn't even care about her own health for that matter. In the past week, she's probably slept with about ten different men. Not even when she gets a nasty looking bruise on her forehead does she worry. She could be anemic. She could be in the early stages of liver failure due to her drinking or maybe Hepatitis C or B, or she could be developing one of the many complications secondary to the AIDS virus.
No siree. April could care less. She's the vice-president of the 4Fs club: Find 'em, Feel 'em, Fuck 'em and Forget 'em.
Their pal Jenn (Pamela Segall who was a SWEET person in EAT YOUR HEART OUT) is a punk rocker with tattoos, and nose-rings, and sings with a kick-ass band called the Murmurs (which, until the day of May 28, 2006, I thought was a fictional band created for this film!!! No they are a real band who have been around since at least the mid-90s. Wow, I need to research on the web more often!!!). She's definitely the prez of the 4Fs and doesn't hesitate to offer their not as worldly friend Suzanne (Kristin Datillo) verbal tuteledge on how to give a good blow job to her boyfriend Mitch, whom she doesn't love and is thinking of pitching in favor of Europe.
Hanging out with these gals, you wonder why Claire hasn't become the Chairman of the Board for 4Fs. But, alas, she can't seem to give up her quest for the right guy who will really love her. At a magazine stand she rebukes the all too common advances of a guy named Chad (Jeremy Sisto) but her ice melts when he compliments her red hair and asks her out on a date.
From the start Claire suspects Chad is not from L.A. but rather one of the millions who migrate to LaLa land hoping to make it big. And she's right. Chad is an actor who does K-Mart commercials and sings with a band called Bruc Lee. He doesn't live in a nice big house but shares a huge, kind of run down house with some guys (among them Christopher Jaymes and Adam Goldberg) who love to play Scrabble.
Chad lavishes lots of attention on Claire and seems to love attention himself. But both April and Claire's brother Jason (Giovanni Ribisi) warn Claire that she should be careful not to give her whole heart away too soon. Jason seems very protective towards his sister, and knows as well as she does what it's like to be hurt. He's had a crush on Jenn forever and she returns his affection by dumping on him and treating him very rudely, bringing her pal Ravi (Trevor Goddard) along on what Jason thought was going to be a real date.
Of course, having the track record that she does, Claire goes to bed with Chad on their second date, her behavioral patterns obviously shaped from too much booze, too much insecurity and too much rejection from the guys in her past. This is a woman who screamed, "I CAN'T BE ALONE!!!" when the guy who preceded Chad dumped her.
For a few days, things seem to be okay. Claire spends several happy nights with Chad (one of the sexiest scenes I've seen in a long while is where they are in bed together and she's stroking his face...and he kisses her hands...ooohhh!!!) and he makes her very nervous when he uses the "L" word.
Daring to hope this will last, Claire makes Chad her whole focus in life and falls apart emotionally when one day, out of the blue, he seems distracted and feels like "going home to sleep" rather than spending time with her. Her behavior is so true to life. I've acted like that myself. I'm sure many women and men have acted that way about someone. Claire sees that behavior in Neal, who is hopelessly pining away waiting for April to change her tune and be true to him, but she cannot see how pitiful her own pursuit of Chad is becoming. She tells Neal to give up on April ever caring about him and Neal finally follows her advice and breaks off his painful relationship with April.
Meanwhile, poor Claire seems on the verge of panic as she awaits a phone call from him and nothing can settle her down. Impatiently, she gets into her car, still clad in her pajamas, and drives over to Chad's house. He seems annoyed that she would show up unannounced and even more annoyed that she is panicking over his not having called her since last night. It's obvious, by the look on his face, that his feelings have changed from when they first started dating.
What caused the big change??? Who knows??? Was it Claire's drinking??? Chad didn't seem like a big drinker, aside from the red wine they had with their Chinese takeout one night. Was it Claire's "desperate" behavior, getting all upset and panicky over phone calls and cancelled dates??? Men do tend to get turned completely off what Claire did.
Or could it just be Chad??? I've known a few men who act like Chad did. It turns out that he is pretty slutty as well and while we women would like to say he was just a horndog who wanted to have a collection of women to screw, it's really not just about wanting sex. Like the women in this story, the men, Jason, Mitchell and even Chad, want attention. In addition, Chad wanted continuous excitement. He craved it, and when he got it, he relished it. Men like Chad don't seem to like anything less than that first spark of excitement that new relationships start with. The minute things start settling into "routine" the guy panicks in his own way and is off looking for a new face, a new body, someone new who will give him that excitement again, that attention that comes with being with someone new. Claire paid plenty of attention to Chad, but apparently it was the wrong kind a week an a half into their relationship. Chad didn't seem to want her needy, clinging, emotional outbursts. And like I said before, it couldn't be just about wanting sex, for Claire would have given Chad sex any time he wanted.
Of course we can't forget that April was so angry at Claire for butting into her and Neal's love life that April thought of the ultimate way to get back at Claire. When Claire said, "I would never fuck my best friend's boyfriend," notice April said, "Hmmm...I would!!!" and left in a huff, made a bee line for Chad's house and had sex with him. Knowing the number of men she's slept with and the number of women he's slept with makes you disgusted and you wonder when these foolish, careless, promiscuous people, barely in their early twenties, will care about contracting AIDS, Hepatitis, the clap, et cetera. Only when it's too late, it seems!!!
Naturally, Claire, longing to see Chad and get to the bottom of why he's so cool to her lately, gets rather a glimpse of HIS bottom as she catches him and an unidentified women going at it in his room. Incensed, then heartbroken, then incensed again, Claire grabs her little brother's beebee gun and goes after Chad. Even while you know she's a reeling drunk who needs to be checked into rehab, you feel a twinge of pity for her, a bit of admiration for her spunk and you think Chad's sort of a nut to let go of this truly fiery redhead. But he does let go, telling her, "Sometimes it just doesn't click." He's pretty much made up his mind that they should stop seeing each other. Again, I'm forced to wonder if her drinking is what messed things up between them. He isn't hateful, and actually looks sorry that he's made her cry. That's another thing about this movie. The facial expressions on every actor's face tell not so obvious parts of this story, and add dimension to what appear to be a bunch of shallow, selfish people.
On Halloween night, Claire and Jason throw a party and Claire dresses up in an angel costume. Chad's roommates come to the party but Chad doesn't show, so instead of joining in the festivities, Claire sits alone in her room and drinks as usual. It is here that Claire finds out that the unidentified woman was in fact her "best friend" April, and you never do find out if these two ever reconciled.
April and Neal have a much needed talk and April apologizes, saying she knows she's hurt Neal and many other people with her slutty behavior and that she just doesn't understand herself. Of course Neal, who will love April till the end of time no doubt, forgives April and takes her back. Only heaven knows if April will really change or if she will go back to her one night stands tomorrow.
Claire calls Chad and gets very angry when he tells her he can't talk right now. She makes a mad dash for the old white house. Chad doesn't answer the door and Claire finally goes insane. One guy too many has fucked with her and she sets fire to the house. You find out that the old white house was burnt to the ground. Chad might have been up in his room with a woman or he might have been out on a date. It could be that if he was in the house, he escaped the fire and ended up cussing Claire out, him and his new girlfriend standing half-naked and bawling on the sidewalk as Claire runs merrily away
But you never find out. Only Claire knows. You want to ask her. It's kind of frustrating. Sometimes I get so frustrated that I could cry. I think the end is the only part of this movie that I have problems with. You also want to know if she and April could ever be friends again. But you never find out. As she gets into the car with the cute cop who stopped her and suspected her as the arsonist and also noticed that she likes to drink, you wonder if Claire will ever change her behavioral patterns, if she'll ever get help with her drinking problem, or if she's just destined to stay in a drunken stupor, falling into one dead end relationship after another. You never find out. Maybe that cop will lead her down a new path, but only Claire knows.
WHEW!!! That's the end of this review...and I'm pooped!!!
BACK to SOME GIRL
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