Uptown Girls [DVD] [2004]

The twist with Molly Gunn is that she is the daughter of a rock 'n' roll legend, guitarist Tommy Gunn. Her parents were killed in a plane crash when she was about Ray's age and she has been living off the residuals. In her apartment there is a shrine in which all of her father's guitars are displayed, including the one on which he wrote his biggest hit, "Molly Smiles," the song that Molly can no longer bear to here. Molly might be spoiled, but she has a kind heart and not a mean bone in her body. When her accountant steals all of her money and disappears she has her friends, Ingrid (Marley Shelton) and Huey (Donald Faison), who stay true and try to help her survive in the real world (I liked not having to do deal with her friends forgetting her now that she is broke). She also likes Neal Fox (Jesse Spencer), the young musician who plays at her birthday party. The only problem is that he is 274 days in his sobriety and wants to be celibate the first year. But he too is inspired by Molly to write a song that becomes a hit.

Ray's mother, Roma Schleine (Heather Locklear) runs a record label, which, of course, signs Neal. This also explains why Ray needs a Nanny and we already know why the kid's attitude has a long procession of nanny's coming and going. But beyond her immaculate room and her preoccupation with germs and disease, Ray has her own father issue: he suffered a stroke and is now a vegetable set up in the library of the apartment. She seldom talks about her dad and she never visits him. To Molly, this is just wrong, but she does not give the obvious speech. Ray is smart enough to know what she would say and Molly bides her time until the time comes to say the right thing. In the counter-part to that scene that comes shortly afterwards, Molly and Ray communicate a whole range of emotions without either one of them even saying a word. Films like this rarely let silence speak so well on the behalf of the characters.

Dakota Fanning was the best thing in "Taken," and after her solid performance in "I Am Sam" it is nice to see her do a more comedic role in this film. Count me in the growing list of those who think she could well be the Jodi Foster of her generation (to wit, she is better than Jodi Foster was at this age and you have the sense that she can make the transition from child star to adult star). Brittany Murphy, who was wasted in "Just Married" and was asked to do something decidedly different in "8 Mile," sinks her teeth into this role. She has the ditzy parts down pat, but it is the honest moments that she shares with both Ray and Roma that she achieves her best grace notes in the film. She should get a lot of opportunities to do more romantic comedies and as long as they have some basis in the real world and do not require her character to go over the top, she should thrive in such roles.

Again, I want to applaud the creativity shown at the end of the film. Coming up with a payoff at the end of a film like this is difficult, because you need something that brings the characters together in a happy ending. What I like about this ending is that it achieves this without the characters involved ever making physical contact, by involving at least a half-dozen key plot elements, and, most importantly, by having the song we have been waiting almost the entire movie to hear be as good as it was supposed to be. When you watch the film a second time pay attention to how the music is set up during the auction scene. There might not be enough new here to make this a great film, but director Boaz Yakin has made "Uptown Girls" a nicely crafted formula film that more than meets our expectations.