I'll go against the grain and marginally recommend this one as it has a few good messages that it wishes to convey to its audience (chances are one giving this obscure title a chance and watching it won't need to learn those "messages", though, as they'll luckily already have them).
Dirty Girl is the story of Norman, Oklahoma high school student, Danielle (Juno Temple - Atonement, Cracks, The Dark Knight Rises), who has the reputation of being the town's "dirty girl" as she puts out, smarts off, doesn't care etc. She always appears to be on the hunt for the new guy who can possibly get her out of the dreary town in which she is a bona-fide misfit.
It is 1987 rural America, and so the only person in school who is a bigger misfit than herself is the chubby and unpopular Clarke (newcomer Jeremy Dozier) -- a friendless closet-case (back in the time when the word "fa--ot" was used tirelessly/acceptably to describe homosexuals). The two are paired together for a parenting project as the class's two rejects ... and they form an unlikely bond -- one that grows throughout the film as the duo go in search of Danielle's true father in Fresno, California.
Dirty Girl becomes a buddy road-pic as the pair escape his miserable home life complete with a homophobic and abusive father (Dwight Yoakam - Sling Blade, Panic Room, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada) and scared mother (Mary Steenburgen - Elf, Melvin & Howard, Back to the Future Part III). Danielle is fleeing both Norman-life and her single mother's (Milla Jovovich - The Fifth Element, Resident Evil, Zoolander) approaching marriage to an over-zealous Morman (William H. Macy - Fargo, Boogie Nights, Wild Hogs).
This is perhaps the first time I have seen Jovovich play put-upon parent and I think she was fine in the role for an actress who tends to play strong and fierce (I was able to buy her tender vulnerability here). The film's highest praise belongs to the Dirty Girl, herself, though -- Juno Temple. Temple is a British screen star but you'd never know it here with a perfectly captured and delivered Oklahoma dialect.
This is a buddy pic/road flick/coming-of-age tale that is slightly better than so many of the other same-genre films released every year. Perhaps the important sub-plot of tolerance and acceptance is what raises this above other fare but I also liked the bag of flour (!). The story isn't the most "well thought-out" and a lot of it couldn't possibly happen as presented; but I looked the other way as this was just a small picture about two small-town souls looking for acceptance in a bigger world and their dreams cannot really be faulted.
Dirty Girl is the story of Norman, Oklahoma high school student, Danielle (Juno Temple - Atonement, Cracks, The Dark Knight Rises), who has the reputation of being the town's "dirty girl" as she puts out, smarts off, doesn't care etc. She always appears to be on the hunt for the new guy who can possibly get her out of the dreary town in which she is a bona-fide misfit.
It is 1987 rural America, and so the only person in school who is a bigger misfit than herself is the chubby and unpopular Clarke (newcomer Jeremy Dozier) -- a friendless closet-case (back in the time when the word "fa--ot" was used tirelessly/acceptably to describe homosexuals). The two are paired together for a parenting project as the class's two rejects ... and they form an unlikely bond -- one that grows throughout the film as the duo go in search of Danielle's true father in Fresno, California.
Dirty Girl becomes a buddy road-pic as the pair escape his miserable home life complete with a homophobic and abusive father (Dwight Yoakam - Sling Blade, Panic Room, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada) and scared mother (Mary Steenburgen - Elf, Melvin & Howard, Back to the Future Part III). Danielle is fleeing both Norman-life and her single mother's (Milla Jovovich - The Fifth Element, Resident Evil, Zoolander) approaching marriage to an over-zealous Morman (William H. Macy - Fargo, Boogie Nights, Wild Hogs).
This is perhaps the first time I have seen Jovovich play put-upon parent and I think she was fine in the role for an actress who tends to play strong and fierce (I was able to buy her tender vulnerability here). The film's highest praise belongs to the Dirty Girl, herself, though -- Juno Temple. Temple is a British screen star but you'd never know it here with a perfectly captured and delivered Oklahoma dialect.
This is a buddy pic/road flick/coming-of-age tale that is slightly better than so many of the other same-genre films released every year. Perhaps the important sub-plot of tolerance and acceptance is what raises this above other fare but I also liked the bag of flour (!). The story isn't the most "well thought-out" and a lot of it couldn't possibly happen as presented; but I looked the other way as this was just a small picture about two small-town souls looking for acceptance in a bigger world and their dreams cannot really be faulted.