All the Real Girls

Last updated
All the Real Girls
All the real girls.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by David Gordon Green
Screenplay byDavid Gordon Green
Story byDavid Gordon Green
Paul Schneider
Produced by Jean Doumanian
Lisa Muskat
StarringPaul Schneider
Zooey Deschanel
Patricia Clarkson
Shea Whigham
Cinematography Tim Orr
Edited by Zene Baker
Steven Gonzales
Music byMichael Linnen
David Wingo
Production
companies
Jasmine Productions
Jean Doumanian Productions
Muskat Filmed Properties
Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics
Release dates
  • January 19, 2003 (2003-01-19)(Sundance)
  • February 14, 2003 (2003-02-14)(United States)
Running time
108 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1 million (estimated) [1] [2]
Box office$579,986 [3]

All the Real Girls is a 2003 American romantic drama film written and directed by David Gordon Green, and starring Paul Schneider, Zooey Deschanel, Shea Whigham and Patricia Clarkson. It is about the romance between a young, small-town womanizer and his best friend's sexually inexperienced younger sister. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2003. It was well-received by critics and was nominated for several film festival awards, with Green winning a Special Jury Prize at Sundance.

Contents

Plot

Paul is a young womanizer who lives in a small Southern town and earns a living fixing cars for his uncle. He still lives with his mother, Elvira, who works as a clown cheering up children at the local hospital.

Paul often hangs out with his friends: self-proclaimed partner-in-crime Tip, Bo, and Bust-Ass. Among his friends, Paul has a reputation as a ladies' man, and is not known for being involved in long-term relationships; most of his romances last only a few weeks, and he has slept with nearly every girl in town.

Paul begins to reach a point where he would like to lead a different life when he meets Noel, Tip’s teenage sister who has returned home after attending boarding school. Noel is more thoughtful and mature than the girls Paul is used to. They begin a relationship in private. When Tip hears rumors of Paul and Noel being together, he furiously confronts Paul and wants to know if he is having sex with Noel. Paul refuses to answer, and when their friends try to pull them away from fighting, Tip takes out his anger by beating up another guy.

Paul continues to see Noel despite the rift with Tip. After they make out on a bed one night, Noel wants to go further but Paul stops her. He gets off the bed and tells her that he does not want to hurt her like he has hurt so many other girls. He tenderly expresses to her that he did not expect to like her so much after she returned, but he feels he can be real with her, and he is worried about what she thinks of his reputation. She tells him she is a virgin, and she trusts him.

Later, Noel asks Paul if they can spend the night in a motel. She emotionally tells him about a set of scars on her side: a few years earlier, her dad had let her drive their boat on a lake, but she was careless and ran over a boy in the water. She fell on the deck in horror and began clawing at her skin with a fishhook. Noel says she just wanted to feel pain for what she had done, and Paul comforts her. They go out swimming near the motel that night, then return to the room and make a tent with the sheets on the bed.

Paul later finds Tip sitting along the river in town. Tip tells Paul to do right by Noel, and tries to withhold his anger at how much the two of them used to sleep with women without a care. Tip reveals that he got a local girl pregnant, which has sent him on a drinking bender. Paul asks if he loves the girl, and Tip guesses he does. Meanwhile, Bust-Ass, who has an interest in Noel, starts becoming friendly with her. Noel tells Paul that she will be spending the weekend at a friend's lake house.

When Noel returns, she has come back with a short new haircut. When Paul notices she has a hesitant air about her, she says something happened while she was away. She painfully admits she slept with another guy, and Paul is heartbroken, resulting in a breakup. Paul's mother is angry when he forgets to return her car for a disabled child's party.

At the bar one night, a drunken Paul sees Noel come in with Bust-Ass. They are just friends, but the sight of them together incenses Paul and he causes a scene. Noel is annoyed with Paul’s behavior, but after he apologizes she takes him back to her place and they have sex.

Some time later, Paul and Noel are no longer seeing each other but remain on friendly terms. Paul still has some lingering heartache over his first love, but has emerged out of the relationship a better person thanks to Noel and tries to move on.

Cast

Production

Development

Feeling unseen by the romance films released at the time, David Gordon Green and Paul Schneider conceived and began writing All the Real Girls during the late 90s. Green sought to make a film that was both "contemporary" and "how it feels when you get your gut in a knot". [4] After working on George Washington , Green had several projects he intended to pursue, including a science fiction film and a western film. [5] However, when funding failed to come through for either project, Green got a job at a doorknob factory before turning back to All the Real Girls, a movie he felt "obligated" to make while in his youth and "while these feelings were still fresh and these wounds were still bleeding". [6] [7] Before partnering with Jean Doumanian and Lisa Muskat, a studio had offered Green a larger budget to produce the film. Green would pass due to the studio wanting to cast Freddie Prinze Jr. instead of Schneider. [8]

Pre-production

The crew for All the Real Girls was mostly the same as that of George Washington, most members of which were colleagues from University of North Carolina School of the Arts. [4] Schneider, whose background was mostly in editing, takes on the film's leading role. Feeling closely related to the character of Paul, he said, "All you need to do is to have grown up in North Carolina and had your heart broken, and you're good to go." [9] For the character of Noel, Green and Schneider strived to get the casting "right". Zooey Deschanel was cast, after Green and Schneider felt she embodied how they envisioned the character, and for elevating the material they had written for her. [10] Danny McBride, who served as a second unit director on George Washington, was cast in the supporting role in his acting debut in this film. [11]

Filming

Principal photography for the film was underway in the fall of 2001 in Marshall and Asheville, North Carolina. [1] [12] [13] During production, Green allowed the actors to take scenes in different directions from where the script initially went. This led to the film to take on a new "life of its own". Green also felt to stray away from genre cliches and scenes that had largely been done before. Instead he opted to focus on "unique magical moments". These decisions resulted in the first forty pages of the script being discarded from the final film, including a scene where Paul and Noel meet for the first time. [4]

Reception

Box office

All the Real Girls was given a limited release on February 14, 2003. It played in six theaters, bringing in $39,714 in its opening weekend. It grossed $579,986 on a $1 million budget. [3]

Critical response

The film received positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has an approval rating of 71%, based on 115 reviews, with an average rating of 6.9/10. The site's consensus states, "Has enough honest moments to warrant a look." [14] On Metacritic, it has a score of 71 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [15]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times said “Green is 27, old enough to be jaded, but he has the soul of a romantic poet. Wordsworth, after all, was 36 when he published, ‘The Rainbow comes and goes and lovely as the Rose.’ How many guys that age would have that kind of nerve today?” He gave the film a four out of four star rating. [16]

Awards and nominations

The film was nominated for awards at several different film festivals globally. Green was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and ended up winning the Special Jury Prize for Emotional Truth, as did Patricia Clarkson for Outstanding Performance. [17] [1] Zooey Deschanel was nominated for Best Female Lead at the 2004 Independent Spirit Awards [18] and Best Actress at the 2004 Mar del Plata Film Festival. [19]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Penelope Spheeris</span> American film director and producer

Penelope Spheeris is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. She has directed both documentary and scripted films. Her best-known works include the trilogy titled The Decline of Western Civilization, each covering an aspect of Los Angeles underground culture, and Wayne's World, her highest-grossing film.

<i>The Good Girl</i> 2002 American black comedy-drama film

The Good Girl is a 2002 American comedy-drama film directed by Miguel Arteta from a script by Mike White. The film stars Jennifer Aniston, Jake Gyllenhaal and John C. Reilly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zooey Deschanel</span> American actress and musician (born 1980)

Zooey Claire Deschanel is an American actress and musician. She made her film debut in Mumford (1999) and had a supporting role in Cameron Crowe's film Almost Famous (2000). Deschanel is known for her deadpan roles in comedy films such as The Good Girl (2002), The New Guy (2002), Elf (2003), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), Failure to Launch (2006), Yes Man (2008), 500 Days of Summer (2009), and Our Idiot Brother (2011). She has also ventured into dramatic film territory with Manic (2001), All the Real Girls (2003), Winter Passing (2005), Bridge to Terabithia (2007), The Happening (2008), and The Driftless Area (2015). From 2011 to 2018, she starred as Jess Day on the Fox sitcom New Girl, for which she received nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and three Golden Globe Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Gordon Green</span> American filmmaker (born 1975)

David Gordon Green is an American filmmaker. Green began his career in 1997 and gained fame with the independent film George Washington (2000). He directed two additional independent dramas, All the Real Girls (2003) and Snow Angels (2007), as well as the thriller Undertow (2004), all of which he wrote or co-wrote.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Schneider (actor)</span> American film actor

Paul Andrew Schneider is an American actor best known for his portrayal of Dick Liddil in the epic western film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) and his lead role as Mark Brendanawicz on the first and second seasons of the NBC political satirical sitcom Parks and Recreation (2009–10). He also appeared in lead roles in the romantic drama film All the Real Girls (2003) and the comedy film The Babymakers (2012), the former of which he co-wrote with David Gordon Green and was nominated for the Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Performer.

<i>Manic</i> (2001 film) 2001 American drama film by Jordan Melamed

Manic is a 2001 American drama film directed by Jordan Melamed and written by Michael Bacall and Blayne Weaver. It was shown at several film festivals in 2001 and 2002, including the Sundance Film Festival. The region 1 DVD was released January 20, 2004. This also marks the first time actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel have worked together as each other's main love interest in a film, the second being (500) Days of Summer.

<i>The Go-Getter</i> (2007 film) 2007 American film

The Go-Getter is a 2007 American independent road film directed and written by Martin Hynes. The film stars Lou Taylor Pucci, Zooey Deschanel, and Jena Malone. In the film, 19-year-old Mercer (Pucci) steals a stranger's car to embark on a road trip to find his estranged brother and tell him that their mother has died. He communicates with the car's owner, Kate (Deschanel), via her cell phone while he travels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">She & Him</span> American musical duo

She & Him is an American musical duo consisting of Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward. It was formed in 2006 in Portland, Oregon. Their first album, Volume One, was released on the independent label Merge Records on March 18, 2008. They are commonly associated with the twee, indie-folk resurgence of the mid-2000s, which music critic and professor Eric Harvey described in Stereogum as "childlike, whimsical, earnest, acoustic Starbucks-friendly music like Feist, the Decemberists, Regina Spektor, and Jose Gonzalez."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">June Diane Raphael</span> American actress, comedienne, and screenwriter (born 1980)

June Diane Raphael is an American actress, comedian, and screenwriter. She has starred in TV comedy programs Burning Love, Adult Swim's NTSF:SD:SUV::, and Grace and Frankie. Notable film work includes supporting roles in Year One and Unfinished Business, as well as her 2013 Sundance film Ass Backwards, which she co-wrote and starred in with her creative partner Casey Wilson. She currently co-hosts both How Did This Get Made? alongside Jason Mantzoukas and her husband Paul Scheer, and The Deep Dive with Jessica St. Clair.

<i>500 Days of Summer</i> 2009 film directed by Marc Webb

(500) Days of Summer is a 2009 American comedy-drama film directed by Marc Webb, written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, and produced by Mark Waters. The film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel as Tom and Summer respectively, and in a nonlinear narrative structure, Tom chronicles the story of his relationship with Summer.

<i>Yes Man</i> (film) 2008 romantic comedy film by Peyton Reed

Yes Man is a 2008 romantic comedy film directed by Peyton Reed, written by Nicholas Stoller, Jarrad Paul, and Andrew Mogel and starring Jim Carrey and co-starring Zooey Deschanel. The film is based loosely on the 2005 memoir of the same name by the British humorist Danny Wallace, who also makes a cameo appearance in the film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manic Pixie Dream Girl</span> Stock character type

A Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG) is a stock character type in fiction, usually depicted as a young woman with eccentric personality quirks who serves as the romantic interest for a male protagonist. The term was coined by film critic Nathan Rabin after observing Kirsten Dunst's character in Elizabethtown (2005). Rabin criticized the type as one-dimensional, existing only to provide emotional support to the protagonist, or to teach him important life lessons, while receiving nothing in return. The term has since entered the general vernacular.

<i>Our Idiot Brother</i> 2011 film by Jesse Peretz

Our Idiot Brother is a 2011 American comedy-drama film directed by Jesse Peretz and starring Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel and Emily Mortimer. The script was written by Evgenia Peretz and David Schisgall based on Jesse and Evgenia Peretz's story, and tells the story of a dimwitted but idealistic and well-meaning man who intrudes and wreaks havoc in his three sisters' lives.

<i>New Girl</i> American television sitcom

New Girl is an American television sitcom created by Elizabeth Meriwether and produced by 20th Century Fox Television for Fox that aired from September 20, 2011, to May 15, 2018. The series revolves around quirky teacher, Jessica Day, after she moves into a Los Angeles loft with three men, Nick Miller, Schmidt, and Coach. Former roommate Winston Bishop and Jess's best friend Cece Parekh later join the characters. The show combines comedy and drama elements as the characters, who are in their late 20s and early 30s, deal with relationship issues and career choices. New Girl is a joint production between Elizabeth Meriwether Pictures and 20th Century Fox Television and is syndicated by 20th Television.

<i>Prince Avalanche</i> 2013 American film

Prince Avalanche is a 2013 American comedy-drama film written and directed by David Gordon Green and starring Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch. The screenplay is based on the 2011 Icelandic film Either Way. The film was shot in Bastrop, Texas, after the Bastrop County Complex Fire.

"Moonshine River" is the first episode of the twenty-fourth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. The episode was directed by Bob Anderson and written by Tim Long. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on September 30, 2012.

"Love is a Many-Splintered Thing" is the twelfth episode of the twenty-fourth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. The episode was directed by Mike Frank Polcino and written by Tim Long. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 10, 2013, as a Valentine's Day themed episode, the name being a take on Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing.

<i>The Driftless Area</i> 2015 film

The Driftless Area is a 2015 Canadian-American neo-noir dramedy film directed by Zachary Sluser and starring Anton Yelchin, Zooey Deschanel, and John Hawkes. Alia Shawkat, Aubrey Plaza, Frank Langella, and Ciarán Hinds also appear in supporting roles. The film is based on the 2006 novel of the same title by Tom Drury, who co-wrote the screenplay with Sluser.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jessica Day (New Girl)</span> Fictional character

Jessica Christopher "Jess" Day is a fictional title character in the FOX sitcom New Girl, where she becomes the sole female roommate in an apartment loft in Los Angeles. She is portrayed by Zooey Deschanel.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "WNC-Filmed "All the Real Girls" at Fine Arts Theater This Week". Asheville.com. Retrieved July 9, 2020.
  2. "All the Real Girls (2003) - Financial info". The Numbers. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
  3. 1 2 "All the Real Girls (2003)". Box Office Mojo .
  4. 1 2 3 "David Gordon Green's All the Real Girls". Filmmaker Magazine . 2003. Retrieved February 27, 2023.
  5. Leigh, Danny (September 25, 2001). "'If I Ever Do Anything Clever, Shoot Me'". The Guardian . Retrieved February 27, 2023.
  6. Vine, Katy (October 2022). "How David Gordon Green Became Hollywood's Horror Necromancer". Texas Monthly . Retrieved February 27, 2023.
  7. Saito, Stephen (December 5, 2011). "Flashback: Interview: David Gordon Green on All the Real Girls". Moveable Fest. Retrieved February 27, 2023.
  8. Rabin, Nathan (February 26, 2003). "David Gordon Green and Paul Schneider". The A.V. Club . Retrieved February 28, 2023.
  9. Meyer, Carla (February 23, 2003). "Real Girls The Real Thing / Story of Young Love Awarded a Special Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival". San Francisco Chronicle . Retrieved February 28, 2023.
  10. Felperin, Leslie (July 25, 2003). "David Gordon Green: This Real Boy's Life". The Independent . Retrieved February 28, 2023.
  11. Molloy, Tim (May 22, 2021). "Take 10: Danny McBride". MovieMaker . Retrieved February 28, 2023.
  12. Fellerath, David (January 29, 2003). "Real Girls Has Verve". Indy Week . Retrieved February 28, 2003.
  13. Radish, Christina (April 6, 2011). "Director David Gordon Green Interview Your Highness". Collider . Retrieved February 28, 2023.
  14. "All the Real Girls". Rotten Tomatoes .
  15. "All the Real Girls Reviews". Metacritic .
  16. Ebert, Roger (February 28, 2003). "All the Real Girls movie review (2003)". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved July 20, 2022.
  17. "2003 Sundance Film Festival". sundance.org . Retrieved February 8, 2023.
  18. Susman, Gary (December 3, 2003). "Here are the Independent Spirit Award nominees". Entertainment Weekly . Retrieved July 9, 2020.
  19. Newberry, Charles (March 17, 2003). "'Valentin' stirs controversy at Mar del Plata". Variety . Retrieved July 9, 2020.