Thursday, Dec. 18, 2003
All the Real Girls
David Gordon Green is the Rimbaud of the Sundance set: poetic and perceptive in matters of the heart, fastidious in his visual compositions, attentive to the rhythms of life in real-life small towns that are not subject to the demands of movie melodrama. If that makes All the Real Girls sound like a minimalist bore, then I've criminally undersold the film. Its tale of a ladies' man and a precocious virgin — who, as they gently collide, chart new paths for themselves and each other — makes for a sweet night at the movies. It just happens to be about, not the impossible heroes on the screen, but the quiet couple sitting behind you, engrossed in their own fragile world.