Movie Critique: Uptown Girls

This movie has been one of my favorite underrated films now this film is free on YouTube.

The films open at a young girl's voiceover telling the story. It shows a young girl walking alone in the middle of the night on her way to Coney Island then fast-forwarding in a spinning circular motion of the story of the young girl now all grown up living on her own in a huge apartment with her pet pig Mu moving around in front of the camera. That young girl was Molly Gunn.

Actress Brittany Murphy plays as Molly Gunn, an irresponsible orphan-millionaire adult living in a New York apartment. The apartment is a huge mansion-like apartment. In her room, the colors of the wall are dark, burgundy making Molly's entire room dark and edgy.

At the club, Molly's friends, Ingrid played by Marley Shelton and Huey played by Donald Faison (who actually previously worked with Brittnay Murphy in the movie Clueless) were throwing a surprise birthday party for Molly, apparently, Molly crashed her surprise birthday party.

After one of Ingrid's sophisticated friends said Molly should consider getting botox to get rid of wrinkles ("no appointment necessary"), Molly takes a look at herself in the mirror until she meets Lorriane "Ray" Schleine in the bathroom played by then eight-year-old Dakota Fanning, a hypochondriac germaphobe who was in a bathroom stall making distasteful commentary on her fashion senses. She enters with her own soap washing her hands. I didn't understand what and why a nine-year-old until Huey barge in the ladies' restroom to find Ray turns out the nanny was fired which explains why she's there.

In this video clip, Molly and Ray first meet. Huey finds Molly in the bathroom.

She sees and falls in love with a handsome aspiring British singer Neal Fox played Jesse Spencer who Huey hired to perform at Molly's birthday party and hopefully gets a record deal with Roma Schleine played Heather Locklear and also Ray's unattentive, workaholic mother. He plays a song for her. His song is a heartwarming, breathtaking poetic love song. At the end of her party, Molly tries to find Neal when Ingrid tries to tell Molly because she has a feeling Molly would mess around with the guy not be serious with him then dump after she gets bored with him. Molly takes Neal Fox into her apartment to show her late father's guitar collection. All the guitar collection were displayed in a perfectly lit, waxed neat fashion, all the guitars are arranged from acoustic to electric. It turns out Marley was right, He spends days with her in the apartment but this time Neal leaves her but Molly doesn't want him to leave. After Neal left, Molly was finally facing the reality when a man named Bob, whose Molly parents hired to take care of their finances, took hold of Molly's money and ran away out of the states leaving Molly broke and she has to get a job and start providing for herself. After she lost her last job, she gets a job as Ray's new nanny. At Ray's house, when Molly enters everything is quiet and strange, the hallways look like the hallways from the movie The Shining, and when she sees Ray's father in his room in a comatose-like state Ray closed the door.

In Ray's bedroom, her room is neat and clean, her bed is well made, all her dolls are on the shelves in proper order and her tea set is orderly like every tea set is supposedly set. The funniest part was when Molly was complimenting including her tea set. She sits down on tries to eat one of the scones, which is not a real scone it was plastic. Ray was disgusted and sprayed the plastic scone with a disinfectant spray. I love that scene.

The film has some funny scenes like when Molly was on the payphone leaving Neal a voicemail behind her at the laundromat all her clothes stuffed in the washing machine overfill with soap bubbles she enters in the laundromat, she slips and falls from grace, At Ingrid's apartment (where Molly currently lives), when Ingrid left Molly in charge of the cookies to bake Ingrid's friends wasn't sure cut to the cookies was on fire and Molly uses Neals jacket to extinguish the fire. Lastly, Molly fighting one of Ray's classmates' nanny after Molly stops Ray's fight with her classmate. Ray's reason was that she laughed at her when her nanny called Molly a "slutbag whore".

The saddest scene of this film after Ray's father's death, Ray ran away from school and left to Coney Island. Thankfully, Molly knew where to find her because Molly told her a story when her parents died at a young age. Molly sat on the teacup ride with Ray to join her. The camera panned at both of their facial expression filled with emotion, anger, and grief. After the ride was over, Ray pukes then slap Molly, Molly slaps back, then Ray by violently punching her in the stomach until she emotionally gives Molly a hug.

In the first clip, Molly opens up to Ray about her experience at Coney Island.

In the second clip, Molly finds Ray at Coney Island sitting on the teacup ride. Molly joins her on the ride. They ride on the teacup ride until Ray pukes, later Ray slaps Molly, Molly slaps back, then Ray attacks until she emotionally hugs her.

The ending scene was unforgettable beautiful. At end of the year ballet recital, Molly was a little late but made it on time for Ray's performance. Ray enters the stage dressed in Molly's designed tutu. The tutu was not any ballet tutu, it was bright pink and the bottom tutu colors are pink and orange, filled with beautiful little glittering beads look kind of like stickers. Surprisingly, Neal Fox enters the stage as well with one of Molly's Dad's guitar and plays "Molly Smiles" dedicating the song to Molly, while he was playing the song all of the ballerinas enter holding each of Molly's Dad guitars which reveal he is the anonymous buyer who bought all of her Dads guitars when Molly sold her father's guitars at the auction. Ray's performance is enjoyable to watch her express her fun side. The choreography was very fun and storytelling the way the performance underlines the song.

Molly Smiles performance (the ending of the film)

My Thoughts About This Film

This film is such pure joy. I understand the scene where Ray and Molly both sat on the teacup ride after Ray ran away after her father's passing. The scene was emotionally expressing a representation of how kids express grief and experience grief so that's why Molly sat on the ride with Ray just to express their grief together. Other than that, the story is amazing, I love how Brittany Murphy portrays Molly from an irresponsible adult to a growing mature fashionable woman. Donald Faison's character Huey has been the real friend to Molly unlike Molly's other friend Ingrid who was being too strict and too controlling on Molly even though but she let her stay with her until she gets back on her feet. The film doesn't seem like PG-13 but looked like it should be rated PG. Brittany Murphy and Dakota Fanning make an amazing unlikely big sister little sister pair in this film. Right now, this film is now available on YouTube for free. Who knows it might a limited so better watch it now.

Production Company: Metro Goldwyn Mayer

Distributor: MGM Distribution Co.

Rating: PG-13

Time: 92

Year: 2003

Director: Boaz Yakin

Producer: Fisher Stevens

Written by: Julia Dahl , Mo Ogrodnik , Lisa Davidowitz , Allison Jacobs

Story by: Allison Jacobs

Cast: Brittany Murphy, Dakota Fanning, Jesse Spencer, Marley Shelton, Donald Faison, Heather Locklear

Cinematography: Michael Ballhaus

Editor: David Ray

Release date : August 15, 2003

Running time: 92 minutes

Country: United States

Language: English