Synopsis
Two New York City girls make a pact to lose their virginity during their first summer out of high school. When they both fall for the same street artist, the friends find their connection tested for the first time.
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Cast
- Dakota FanningLilly Berger
- Elizabeth OlsenGerry
- Boyd HolbrookDavid Avery
- Demi MooreKate
- Richard DreyfussDanny
- Ellen BarkinNorma Berger
- Peter SarsgaardFitzsimmons
- Clark GreggEdward Berger
- Kiernan ShipkaEleanor Berger
- Clare FoleyPhoebe Berger
Recommendations
- 50
Slant Magazine
Most disheartening is how the female leads aren't given ample space to develop as dynamic characters beyond the most urgent confines of the script's scenarios. - 50
The A.V. Club
The casting isn’t all together unconvincing: Olsen and Fanning’s collective ability to project intelligence beyond their years works both ways, allowing them to play both precocious youths and youthful adults. But Very Good Girls catches them in between those stages, and the effect isn’t evocative so much as muddled. - 50
The New York Times
You can only imagine how much stronger the movie might have been had it fleshed out subsidiary dramas whose outlines are barely discernible. - 40
Los Angeles Times
Despite a finely wrought lead performance by Dakota Fanning, the drama feels more like the stuff of a mild — and dated — YA novel than an involving exploration of female experience. - 40
New York Daily News
The only real reason to see it is for a luminous leading turn from Dakota Fanning as Brooklyn teen Lilly. - 38
RogerEbert.com
All in all, Very Good Girls is a very bad excuse to subject those of us who have enjoyed Fanning ever since 2001’s "I Am Sam" to seeing her flash her bare fanny, fondle herself provocatively and cavort in her underwear for no dramatic purpose. Yes, she should be allowed to grow up onscreen. But without a story that justifies it, it just feels sad and desperate. - 30
The Hollywood Reporter
The film rings false at almost every turn despite its naturalistic performances. Lacking emotional substance, it comes off as far too studied in its subdued intensity. - 30
The Dissolve
Movies about female friendship are rare, so it’s dispiriting when one comes along, then hauls out the same tired plot in which both women fall for the same guy. Very Good Girls can’t even blame rampant film-industry sexism, as it was written and directed by Naomi Foner, making her directorial debut after many years as a screenwriter.
