Nothing grates quite so much as a "realistic" film that contains practically no realism at all.
To its credit, "All the Real Girls" really *tries* to be true-to-life. But the dialog and performances don't convince. Characters in this film are constantly doing and saying quirky, bizarre things that real people never do or say.
For example, in one of many strange "romantic" scenes, the female lead says to her boyfriend: "I had a dream last night that you were growing a garden on a trampoline. And I was so happy that I invented peanut butter." So, what are we to make of this bizarre nugget of dialog? Is it "sentimental"? Is it "deep"? And is it the kind of thing that I would say on a date? (I'll answer the last question for you -- "no.") It's none of those things, it's just ridiculous ... the product of a strange, artificial mode of speech peculiar to American art-house movies.
In another weird moment, our romantic leads are standing in an inexplicably deserted bowling alley (did they break in after hours?) The guy says to his girlfriend something like, "I wanna dance, but I don't want you to watch me. Turn around." So she turns around. And then he dances like a doofus. Do even goofy teenagers behave like this on dates? And am I really supposed to believe that this awkward-as-anything guy is a ladies' man, as we are repeatedly told (but not actually shown)?
Other exciting scenes involve a lengthy discussion of what's better to eat for breakfast, pancakes or eggs; a woman in a clown costume declaring something like "I used to be beautiful, but now I am this clown"; and a scuffle in which an unimportant character gets beaten severely and choked, and is then totally forgotten about by all the other characters, the director, and the screenwriter. One of many strange lapses in a film of lapses.
So, if your idea of a good time is to spend almost two hours in indie movie hell, watching a non-plot crawl along at the pace of a half-dead snail, while two superficial and thinly drawn characters alternate between flirting ridiculously and exchanging depressing anecdotes on their path to falling in a desperately superficial form of love ... well then, this may be the motion picture for you. I, for one, will be watching something like "Smiles of a Summer Night" or "Terror of Mechagodzilla" instead.
To its credit, "All the Real Girls" really *tries* to be true-to-life. But the dialog and performances don't convince. Characters in this film are constantly doing and saying quirky, bizarre things that real people never do or say.
For example, in one of many strange "romantic" scenes, the female lead says to her boyfriend: "I had a dream last night that you were growing a garden on a trampoline. And I was so happy that I invented peanut butter." So, what are we to make of this bizarre nugget of dialog? Is it "sentimental"? Is it "deep"? And is it the kind of thing that I would say on a date? (I'll answer the last question for you -- "no.") It's none of those things, it's just ridiculous ... the product of a strange, artificial mode of speech peculiar to American art-house movies.
In another weird moment, our romantic leads are standing in an inexplicably deserted bowling alley (did they break in after hours?) The guy says to his girlfriend something like, "I wanna dance, but I don't want you to watch me. Turn around." So she turns around. And then he dances like a doofus. Do even goofy teenagers behave like this on dates? And am I really supposed to believe that this awkward-as-anything guy is a ladies' man, as we are repeatedly told (but not actually shown)?
Other exciting scenes involve a lengthy discussion of what's better to eat for breakfast, pancakes or eggs; a woman in a clown costume declaring something like "I used to be beautiful, but now I am this clown"; and a scuffle in which an unimportant character gets beaten severely and choked, and is then totally forgotten about by all the other characters, the director, and the screenwriter. One of many strange lapses in a film of lapses.
So, if your idea of a good time is to spend almost two hours in indie movie hell, watching a non-plot crawl along at the pace of a half-dead snail, while two superficial and thinly drawn characters alternate between flirting ridiculously and exchanging depressing anecdotes on their path to falling in a desperately superficial form of love ... well then, this may be the motion picture for you. I, for one, will be watching something like "Smiles of a Summer Night" or "Terror of Mechagodzilla" instead.