The Good Girl

Just like Arteta’s morbid début comedy Chuck & Buck, The Good Girl was written by Mike White. The good girl from the title of this captivating tragi-comedy is Justine (Aniston, 30). At home, her marriage has reached a critical phase. Her husband (Reilly) is an amiable house painter who smokes a little too much marijuana. Possibly as a result, the desire for children has not yet been realised. At her work, in the make-up department of Rodeo Retail, a lower-class department store, she is surrounded by a fine selection of colleagues, from a security man well versed in the scriptures to a girlfriend who enjoys making slightly confusing announcements over the tannoy system. Then the young Holden (Gyllenhaal) arrives and starts flirting with Justine. He too suffers from loneliness and sombre moods and dreams of fleeing the small town in West Texas with Justine. Justine’s juggling with her passions, frustrations and humanity leads to a series of dramatic events.Friends star Aniston, not the first person one would normally envisage as a chronically dissatisfied check-out girl, succeeds in subtly expressing the doubts and uncertainties of Justine with a look or a grimace. Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko) again makes an impression by evoking both sympathy and irritation.