frida-review.html

The writer and director of All the Real Girls, David Gordon Green, has been quoted as saying, "I don't necessarily think 26-year-old white guys are that interesting. So why would I want to make another movie about their coffee shops and romantic pratfalls?" Good question. This film has nothing new to offer except for maybe a more realistic treatment of 26-year-old white guys and their romantic pratfalls. But I have to say that I liked it. It is, I think, a combination of the realism of the story and the extreme likeability of the two leads, Zooey Deschanel and Paul Schneider. They play the stereotypical starcrossed lovers in a small town that could be anywhere. And in All the Real Girls, they picked North Carolina.
Anyway, our lovers, Noel and Paul, have realized that they are living the same small dead end lives as everyone else in their town and they don't want more than that but they do want each other. Of course, the road to finding that out is a bit winding. The fact that this storyline, even though it has been done a thousand times, does not feel that way at the end of the movie, is a tribute to Gordon, Deschanel and Schneider. I haven't seen any of them before but I'm sure we'll be seeing them all again. I am particularly interested in Gordon's next directing gig. It's the prototypical new Orlean's novel, The Confederacy of Dunces. Schneider and Deschanel are very good. They have such good chemistry together and seem so real that they burst through the sameness of this film. The only familiar face is Patricia Clarkson who got to kiss Julianne Moore this year in Far From Heaven. Clarkson makes the most of a small part playing the unhappy and lonely mother of Schneider.
So, this movie is a tough call. It worked for me but I already know it won't work for everyone. It has very little plot, no car chases, and a very slow pace. But it is very romantic in its own way and I'm a sucker for that.