Editor Reviews:

Product Description:
Provocative story of two young lovers who discover the power of passion and the irrational and emotionally addictive feelings of love lust & carnal desire. Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 05/27/2008 Starring: Patricia Clarkson Paul Schneider Run time: 108 minutes Rating: R Director: David Gordon Green

Amazon.com:
You'd think moviemakers would have run out of new ways of capturing the trials and joys of young love--but director David Gordon Green finds a fresh take in All the Real Girls, a bittersweet small-town romance. By leaving out the usual humdrum exposition of a courtship story, Green cuts right to the little moments that form the high and low points of a budding relationship. It's an impressionistic style aided by the wonderfully spontaneous and unpredictable acting of Paul Schneider (who also co-scripted) and Zooey Deschanel--who look like they're improvising, even though they're not. As in Green's excellent debut feature George Washington, a small town serves as an atmospheric backdrop--this place looks a couple of decades shy of the 21st century. The mosaic approach makes the film play like a collection of memories, someone's first love recalled with fondness and just a bit of regret. --Robert Horton

Rating : - Good Film
All The Real Girls was David Gordon Green's 2003 follow up film to his 2000 debut film George Washington, which became an underground classic. The good news is that it is a superior film to that earlier excellent film, and Green shows real growth as a filmmaker. Like the earlier film, this film breaks with traditional narrative, and spends the first third, or so, of its hour and forty eight minutes running time devoted to simply introducing the viewer to the main characters of the small southern town it's set in, with rapturous cinematography by Tim Orr. Although the film was shot in and around Asheville, North Carolina, it's not set in any specific time nor place. There is very little, in terms of technology nor cultural references, to date it.
The film grabs the viewer from its terrific opening scene, where two unknown lovers talk about why the boy has not even tried to kiss the girl. It is an awkward, but tender, scene, and we will soon learn the reasons why he has not kissed her, but it is the sort of scene that no Hollywood producer would let any film of theirs open with. We soon learn that these two main characters are the town's noted Lothario, Paul (Paul Schneider), an aimless but earnest fellow in his early twenties, and his odd girlfriend Noel (Zooey Deschanel), the college aged sister of Paul's best friend, Tip (Shea Whigham), who looks like he just stepped out of a James Dean film. Of course, Tip objects to the relationship between his best friend and baby sister, for he knows that Paul is as big a poon hound as he is, and violence ensues. Yet, it is not in the Hollywood fashion, and plays no major role in the film, which follows the realistic ups and downs of the first real love relationship for both characters. Even though Noel is a virgin when they meet, as she comes back to town after being away at boarding school, it is Paul who is the more insecure about himself. This may be because Noel's family is from a richer social class, but the viewer need not be spoonfed such information for the scenes unfold, one after the other, and give us snippets not only into the lead characters, but into the lesser characters, too, and this, in turn, lets us know more about their social and family milieu than direct exposition through straight ahead narrative.... This film is thus one that transcends its chronological bounds on film. The viewer has seen more than enough of the lead characters to care for them, so this film is really more about the place this little romance unfolds in, not its particular participants. The film's producers, Lisa Muskat and Jean Doumanian should be commended for supporting such fine work. It will ease your angst, and make almost two hours of your life a little brighter.