Ray Pride

Start with the smooch.

In David Gordon Green's "All the Real Girls," credits start, a Will Oldham song quietly churns breath, then a boy and girl take center frame and kiss. The magic and madness that follows come down to that: first time lips-on-lips, first time words become only embellishment and meaning comes only with the meeting of fingertips.

Paul (Paul Schneider, who co-wrote) and Noel (Zooey Deschanel), the ill-starred young lovers in Green's sophomore follow-up to "George Washington," are at the center of a splintered, bittersweet portrayal of youth's tremulous indecision and shattering desire. The 27-year-old director has made another American original, effortlessly authentic to the humidity and timelessness of the American South, yet showing a postmodern willingness to skew his narrative for maximum lyrical impact. The rhapsodic dialogue and despairing over an imperfect love is measured out in sustained takes without traditional coverage. Memory is a scalpel, and "All the Real Girls" cuts deep with its odd parallels to Wong Kar-Wai's "In the Mood for Love" and Elia Kazan's "Splendor in the Grass," with a touch of "The Last Picture Show."

Paul is an unregenerate tomcat, mostly in the company of his best friend Tip. Schneider's face clouds often, bunched brow shadowing his eyes, as if shielding him from self-knowledge. The starriest moments belong to Deschanel, as Noel, indelible as a dippy virgin who happens to be the 18-year-old sister of Tip. Deschanel, startlingly present and transparent in small roles in movies such as "Almost Famous" and "The Good Girl," is an all-American marvel. What Audrey Tautou is to French movies, Deschanel is to ours. She's quite an individual, getting ardent expressiveness out of potential bromides like "I was thinking I like you because I can say what's on my mind."

There's a scene that made my eyes sting both times I saw the film: Noel leans in to her besotted boy and says: "Come here, let me tell you a secret" and when he leans closer, whispers "hellohellohellohellohello." "That was Zooey," Green quickly admits in an interview. "That was all her. That was rehearsal. That's her heart and her soul. Those little whispers and little moments; it's not a witty screenwriter behind there, it's a genuine girl that feels things and has a sensitivity you fall in love with. At least I do. It's those little moments that make relationships I've had memorable. It's the weird little quirks in girls' mannerisms and behavior. Going on a structured date and going through the routines of relationships is inconsequential and ultimately forgettable. But it's those little things that just stab you when they're gone, when you know you're not going to get that whisper in your ear anymore."

Green says his movie is a reaction to other movies about teen and twentysomething romance. "Every step of the way, I thought I could bring something to a genre that nobody had seen before and that everybody could identify with," he says in his fast Texas-reared drawl. "Never once did I say, I want to make an obscure art film about love and relationships. I wanted to make a film that my mom's friends like, that an 18-year-old girl likes, that a 36-year-old construction-working man that's bruised with tattoos likes. I think it's gonna challenge them to realize they don't have to be told every emotion along the way, they don't have to exposed to every plot point. You just emotionally connect to people in a way that, if we're successful, the details are insignificant. The plot, the structuring details are insignificant. What's more important is what they're wearing, how they're looking at each other, how they touch each other, what you do and do not see about them."

The most overtly "cute" scene in the movie is in a deserted bowling alley. They're alone in the middle of a lane, hugging in an odd way, and then he asks her to turn around so he can dance for her without her watching. "Well, yeah. It is cute. But you get a few of those that people can latch onto, and it keeps the mysterious elements, like they're in the middle of a bowling alley for what reason, I don't know, where, who cares? It's a postured, interesting, secret place that these people are in, in a position that is intimate only to them. And it expresses, in a cute yet subtle way, his insecurities. [Paul] wants to dance but he doesn't want her to watch. He wants to say he loves her, but he can't look her in the eye and say that because how many times has he abused that privilege? How many times has he looked a girl in the eye that he hated and he just wanted to stick his dick into and told her he loved her?"

"All The Real Girls" opens Friday.

(2003-02-26)

Also by Ray Pride

Tip of the Week
"Mistake-ism" is a word Harmony Korine coined for himself--try every damned thing as if you'll never have a chance to again.
(2003-02-19)

Short Runs
This week's limited showings
(2003-02-19)

DVD Tip of the Week
While "The Inner Landscapes of Andrei Tarkovsky," the U.S. retrospective tour of the features of Russian visionary Andrei Tarkovsky ends its Chicago leg soon, his two earliest works are out on DVD.
(2003-02-19)

Tip of the Week
Freak floods. High winds. Fighter jets. Prostate inflammation. What more can stop the making of Terry Gilliam's long-in-the-works vision of Cervantes' "Don Quixote," starring Johnny Depp, Jean Rochefort, Vanessa Paradis, and a trio of bare-chested, breast-blubbering giants?
(2003-02-11)

Short Runs
(2003-02-11)

The devil you say
(2003-02-11)

The end of the affair
(2003-02-05)

Short Runs
(2003-02-05)

All about love
(2003-01-29)

Short Runs
(2003-01-29)

Tip of the Week
(2003-01-22)

Short Runs
(2003-01-22)

about Newcitychicago | about Newcity magazine | advertising | privacy policy | FAQ | employment