The Good Girl

Perhaps this film is most notable as one that displays Jennifer Aniston’s serious acting talents. This dark story features an impressive cast that includes Jake Gyllenhaal (“Donnie Darko”, “The Day After Tomorrow”) and John C. Reilly (“Magnolia”, “Chicago”), both veritable actors in supporting roles. The supporting cast, in particular Gyllenhaal and O’Reilly, are suited for thoughtful, sensitive, smaller films, and they fit into this one perfectly. A discount store clerk, played by Jennifer Aniston, has a stereotypically complete life with her doting husband, working class social life, and ordinary job. Despite this normal happiness, the monotony of it bothers and drives her to take on an affair with an odd fellow employee (Gyllenhaal) who seems to sense and resist the monotony she feels too. As she becomes more and more involved with him, she begins to examine her own life more. The film has a steady crescendo that will have you biting your nails at the end, wondering what life she will choose. Gyllenhaal plays the angsty, earnest young man perfectly as always, it’s a role that he seems to have cut out as his specialty. The humdrum quality of everyday life is captured flawlessly, almost comically at times, at the “Retail Rodeo” (Aniston’s place of employment), where at least half of the movie is aptly set in, emphasizing the trapped feelings of Aniston’s character. Despite the twists and turns of the movie, the overall mood of weak frustration hardly ever fluctuates, keeping the foundation of the film’s theme intact and ever-present. Though there are many opportunities to turn the film into a crusade against society or make Aniston or Gyllenhaal the voice of freedom, the story remains beautifully mysterious and complex to the very last scene. It is an original and thought-provoking mixture of depression and comfort that is deliberately down-to-earth and realistic.

The J.D. Salinger Connection: Gyllenhaal’s character is especially eccentric because he insists that he is an incarnation of Holden Caulfield. The distinguishing blank book cover of The Catcher in the Rye is waved about several times by his character, affirming the direct and somewhat daring reference. It is a connection that is not just used as a clever character-defining detail, but is the character’s active influence throughout most of the film. Naturally, the movie gets across Gyllenhaal’s frustration with his life and the way of the world very clearly via this reference to Holden Caulfield. It comes across rather comically, and at times the pathetic assertiveness of Gyllenhaal intentionally serves to provoke reactions about how people deal with feelings of anonymity, alienation, and powerlessness. The pitiable status of this character rather eliminates the pretentiousness that can easily be evoked when dealing with the superiority of a Caulfield-like character. Thus, “The Good Girl” deserves a good amount of credit in putting out a truly affecting Salinger-esque character.