Dirty Girl (2010)

Dirty Girl: Directed by Abe Sylvia. With Jeremy Dozier, Juno Temple, Zach Lasry, Jonathan Slavin. It’s 1987 and Danielle, the high school ‘Dirty Girl’, is running away. With her is chubby, gay Clarke, a bag of flour called Joan and a Walkman full of glorious ’80s tunes.

“This movie was rated 37% on Metacritic and 27% on Rotten tomatoes and honestly I think this is wrong, wrong, wrong. I expect this is because the title is misleading…the movie is not about a u0026quot;dirty girlu0026quot; at all, itu0026#39;s about a journey of discovery and maturation and the transformative power of friendship. The writing is not particularly sophisticated so in lesser hands the movie could easily have sucked. However the two lead actors were so engaging (and the supporting cast were also excellent) that what could have felt like a flat, unconvincing story was, in my opinion, extremely touching. I confess toward the end I was crying in sympathy for the loss experienced by the main characters. Thankfully, the final scenes in the movie turned this into a positive (and even mildly cathartic) experience. I had become invested in the characters (so you see, I cannot possibly trash this movie the way so many others have).”