This movie was a true heartache of a film. Girl, originally a novel by Blake Nelson, was the story of a highschool girl who discovers sex and the local music scene. Both enrich her life and make her feel differently in relationships with other people. It was a well written, subtle but powerful book that affected the lives of many young women. Sadly, the movie is studio junk.

The director and screenwriter chose instead to turn this into a movie about hot highschoolers going at it and acting like groupies. Each character has been flattened out to a cutesy stereotype. For example, Tara Reid was chosen to play Cybil, who in the book is a lesbian rocker and very withdrawn. The movie really has no plot, other than Andrea chasing around Todd as if she is an NSync groupie. I felt like I watched a two hour commercial for noxema or saw a 17 magazine come to life as a movie.

If you want to watch a goofy film about over sexed teenagers, rent this movie. If you want something th more heart, read the book. Or better yet, rent Blue Car or Thirteen.

Poor old RavenGlamDVDCollector cannot get further than the downloaded trailer, which I got to after doing research on Dominique Swain and TART. Took one look and instantly saw that it had a CLUELESS Alicia Silverstone vibe and I was more than hooked, I was being reeled in. But when I found it after a long struggle (searching for "GIRL" at my supplier brought more than 660 hits, from THE GIRL NEXT DOOR to GOSSIP GIRL to quite every girl in the New York phone guide, but I zoomed in by searching "Dominique Swain") the price caused all my elation to fade. In my country, you can buy a second-hand motorcycle for that price. My review is therefore based on the trailer alone, and is merely here because I want to have my say about a movie I didn't even know about until yesterday afternoon, but will take up a lot of my time in the months to follow, as I will constantly monitor for a price drop. This morning, looking at the trailer again, noticed it was even more of a MY SO-CALLED LIFE ambiance, and Dominique really mimics Claire Danes most winsomely. With the hook in deep, the buzz for this is as high with me as the chances of getting to it properly is low, so bear with me if the review is as stale as days-old bread. Oh to be as fortunate as to waft on indignantly about it as some of you privileged lot out there in Civilization. Find a little-known 1998 title in our struggling, floundering video-rent stores? Snowball's chance in hell on a summer's day with no umbrella.

The big draw-card for me is the intentional CLUELESS/MY SO-CALLED LIFE vibe. It's hilarious and draws me to it like a bee is drawn to honey. I loved Dominique Swain in the remake of LOLITA, and I'm really long overdue to see her in something else. Here she is very cute, so cute that I can only say that she must be miscast, as any girl THAT PRETTY would know she is THAT PRETTY and not need friends to tell her she is sexy for GIRLS HAVE MIRRORS, you know, and that one has a very lucky mirror. But the appeal to me lies in the Cher Horovich/Angela Chase speech patterns, I more than loved CLUELESS and MY SO-CALLED LIFE, and they were two of my all-time favorite characters. Throw in Tara Reid and this can only be a truckload of fun.

Addendum, 20 December 2015. I just downloaded the first ten minutes, thank you VuClip!

While the trailer promises a bright, funny chick, the movie, judged by its first ten minutes, appears disappointingly dull, like it's got no beating heart, like key elements are there, but not a trace of spark. Aneamic. Believe me, this isn't sour grapes at all. I might never obtain this title, I monitor the price daily, going "Christmas! Bah! Humbug!" and am hoping for a reprieve on which I would act, but this strategy might not work. Anyway, movie itself now seems truly bleak, but Dominique's fault it certainly wasn't. Note to producers: Yes, a pretty girl is a must-have ingredient, but don't forget the ZING! You need to add oodles of ZING and CHARM. Then you get MAGIC. And fill theaters and sell DVDs (at normal prices! and making even more bucks!) - A fanatic collector's lament.

For anybody who do not understand what I am on about, witness the trailer on VuClip, and then the 10 minute clip. The difference is marked. Sadly. It's like a cake falling flat. A cake-mix that has lots of very good ingredients, yummy-delicious, in it.

Ironically, I got my titular wish granted without the actual DVD. :(

{since been obtained, at sky-high cost}

Addendum, 19 October 2016. The movie proved to be a whole lot more popular with me than that download made it appear. Everything is better on a big screen. The famous (well, with me anyway) trailer also appears on the DVD, and I can just look at it and smile warmly. Even though the picture has its flaws, I think Dominique Swain is just the prettiest thing well me being me, I shouldn't say the prettiest thing ever... But most definitely one of the foremost contenders for that title. As far as I'm concerned. You'd notice heavily-laden sour grapes if you'd wade through the other reviews here. An hour-and-a- half commercial for Noxzema, hell, gee, I can just see the bitter ol' thing who wrote that one. I mean, I feel your pain, us lesser mortals live in the Ugly Tree, huh? Be warned that Dominique Swain in this movie is absolutely, absolutely 100% enough to cause a total onslaught of envy. Wow, think what pals you could be with a mirror if you looked like that one!

Similarities with those two names I mentioned back in the beginning: Enough for me to say that the producers were obviously influenced by MY SO-CALLED LIFE and CLUELESS. Down to Andrea writing with a marabou-feathered (very cumbersome!) pen, like Cher in CLUELESS. And when Tara Reid's character first appeared, I yelled out to myself: A.J. Langer!

As for the story itself, of course it doesn't live up to my initial expectations. But they were on to something real real real good, and with a lead as pretty as Dominique, I could just beg for more, should have been a TV series. The way she lights up the screen in that scene where she first hears Todd sing... glam magic movie history. I'm just done for. Stick a fork in me, to quote a line.

If The Raven could have hooked up with a movie character, anyone of his choice, taking into account beauty + personality, = Andrea Marr.

I have probably spent more time on "Girl" than it warrants, just consider this a public service to prospective viewers who are unable to make head or tail out of the wide range of comments already posted. As to the quality of its adaptation from the novel, I won't go there because there is no purpose in "apples to oranges" comparisons and many others have relentlessly addressed the adaptation issue.

Bottom line the movie version of "Girl" is a mess-which can be guessed without even viewing. Made-for-cable movies back in 1998 were generally lousy and not the mix of quality that they are in 2005. Neither director Jonathan Kahn nor writer David Tolchinsky had done a feature before 1998's "Girl" and neither has done anything since then. Just do the math. It is poor storytelling that dooms "Girl" despite generally competent production and acting. The editing has so many "jump cuts" that editing classes could use it as an example of continuity problems.

"Girl" is pretty much what you would have if "Almost Famous" had been a long episode of "My So-Called Life". Dominique Swain plays the main character (Andrea Marr),basically the Penny Lane character in "Almost Famous". Swain's usual acting style is to brazen her way through roles, subtlety and nuance are not words that have ever been used to describe her performances. But in "Girl" she comes closest to a carefully crafted performance and actually shows some restraint. Perhaps this is because of her voice-over narration, which serves as a counterpoint to her actions on the screen. She has a nice voice when reined in and she was still very cute in 1998.

The most obvious problem when adapting a novel is that the screenplay can include only a fraction of the material. The more characters included in the adaptation, the more shallow the character development. This is one of "Girl's" most obvious flaws as there is little reason to connect or care about any of the supporting characters, their quirks exist but we receive no background information so we can never understand why. There is Rebecca (Summer Phoenix) – a big-time grunge music fan who rambles on constantly about music trivia and sex. Rebecca gets the movie's best lines. There is Darcy (Selma Blair) – a walking eating disorder who is supposed to be Andrea's best friend although all they choose to showcase is her resentment of Andrea. There is Cybil (Tara Reid) - A nihilist grunge rocker with a bad home life and a lust for Andrea. Despite Tara Reid being shockingly good in this role (by far her best performance ever) the part is so poorly written and underdeveloped that it would have been best to omit it entirely. There are Kevin (Channon Roe) & Richard (Christopher Masterson) - class geeks who appear in the school cafeteria as part of Cybil's band and seem to have otherwise been omitted from the screenplay. Finally there is Todd (Sean Patrick Flannery) who is Andrea's main love interest and seems embarrassed about even being associated with this movie-he and Swain have no chemistry and seem genuinely uncomfortable together.

Girl's fatal flaw is that it can't decide if it is a comedy, a drama, or a coming-of-age story. Since the humor is confined to an occasional witty line it isn't much of a comedy, the only indication that it was meant to be a comedy is some over-the-top humor about an abusive jock being hit over the head with a board and knocked out. Once is not enough as this nonsense is repeated later in the film. Although not even remotely funny it apparently is there to let the viewer know that this is a comedy as there are never any consequences to those committing the criminal assault (insert "Three Stooges" here). The comedy aspect is finally abandoned and the last few minutes treat us to Lifetime triple feature of teen suicide, bulimia, and homosexuality. These are tacked on with insufficient explanation, apparently because the writer and director sensed that the comedy angle was weak and they needed to qualify it as a coming-of-age story.

This genre splitting ultimately undermines the Andrea character who despite Swain's best efforts comes across as a cobbled together mix of inconsistent and conflicting motivations and behaviors-making her impossible to identify with or care about. She is intelligent (headed for an Ivy League school),beautiful, self-assured, adventurous, and has a lot of friends. You have seen this character before in "Say Anything" but in "Girl" she overnight becomes one of the most hated heroines in teen comedy history. Meaning you have sympathy only for her various victims as she virtually rapes a guy to have her first sex, unfeelingly abandons her friends for cooler ones, explores her emerging femininity without regard to the consequences, and generally acts more eight than eighteen. Swain is physically perfect for the "Say Anything" type of heroine but this works against her so that her transformation into parental nightmare just doesn't ring true.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.