If you’ve never been a 19-year old girl, to paraphrase The Virgin Suicides, you might not get the gravity of Lilly’s (Dakota Fanning) and Gerri’s (Elizabeth Olsen) dilemmas in Very Good Girls. But the path these girls are following during their last summer before college are familiar in their then-seriousness and unfledged complexity. Both sexually inexperienced, the inseparable besties have promised each other to finally get over their virginity before separating for school. One day, while strolling on the boardwalk after some oh-so-crazy skinny-dipping, the duo meets a guy (Boyd Holbrook) and they both fall for him, each in their own way. The seemingly more confident, attractive, and bohemian Gerri dares to go for it, but it’s the more conservative and shy Lilly, without her friend knowing, who actually catches David’s eye. The yet unspoken conflict thickens, as David’s importance steadily grows and Lilly’s heart goes cuckoo; confused and unsure, she’s unable to reveal her true feelings to a friend. Simultaneously, the girls’ family lives keeps on stumbling upon steadily growing crises, their father figures being brutally deconstructed. Lilly’s good-hearted but utterly immature lack of assertiveness will either cement their relationship, or break it forever.
Cleanly, softly shot, Very Good Girls is a delicate and heartfelt story of a friendship on the eve of its maturity test, told in a nuanced, balanced way. Quite sensual and purposefully light, it avoids the trap of a shallow stupid comedy about the first time that it could have easily become. Devoid of dry penis jokes and alcohol/drug experiments, Very Good Girls is simple, but not trivial. Yes, it does shove the male perspective aside, shaping its male characters rather as props than actual human beings. But it truly succeeds in portraying what financially privileged, intellectually promising girls still with YOLO in their heads go through while taking their first steps to, one day, become women who know what love and sex might be, but first and foremost, who understand that a true mature female friendship is worth more than any of those.
What adds to the film is the casting, with Fanning and Olsen being utterly cool but believable as Lilly and Gerri, and the tasty second row of nuanced-enough characters played by Peter Sarsgaard, Ellen Barkin, Clark Clegg, Demi Moore and Richard Dreyfuss. Probably what enriches it the most is the director’s perspective. Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal is an experienced producer and writer but also a mother (to, yes, Jake and Maggie) and a grandmother, with her own collection of experiences under the belt. This might be why the film never patronizes its protagonists, allowing the viewer to treat them with compassion and genuine interest. Very Good Girls is A quite hipster, easygoing summer flick for those who can identify with a irrational, sometimes naive turmoil rumbling in young female hearts. And under their skirts.
