All the Real Girls 2003

Critics score:
71 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Miraculously, Deschanel makes Noel the real girl that both Paul and the movie very much need. Read more

John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press: It's a beautifully realized and assured work packed with the kind of raw emotions that rarely make it to the screen. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: You really feel like you're dropping in on these characters' lives. Read more

Mark Caro, Chicago Tribune: A small movie about big emotions, with Green capturing the rush of love and sting of heartbreak with great vividness. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Mr. Green, with unabashed sincerity and exquisite tenderness, captures both the world-stopping intensity and the delicate absurdity of youthful longing. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Green is 27, old enough to be jaded, but he has the soul of a romantic poet. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Much of the film, which so much wants to seem natural and unforced, comes off as contrived and slightly precious. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Like the confused young people whose tumultuous emotions it details, David Gordon Green's All the Real Girls is exhilarating as well as a little bit frustrating to spend time with. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: A revelation in its ability to capture how love really feels. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: It's a love story stripped of trite narrative conventions and made to feel searingly honest. Read more

Gary Dowell, Dallas Morning News: A love story for those who cannot tolerate the phoniness of Hollywood romance movies, one that deftly avoids melodrama and manipulation in favor of raw emotion. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: A wise, delicate and immensely touching romance. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: Paul Schneider, a buoyant young newcomer from North Carolina, is the No. 1 reason to see David Gordon Green's All the Real Girls. Read more

Peter Rainer, New York Magazine/Vulture: Green recycles hoary cliches by poeticizing them and setting them in a kind of timeless present. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: An anti-Hollywood romance; a tonic for all those weary of the usual cinematic overglamorization of love. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: Green seems more in love with his perceived unconventionality than he does with his characters. Read more

Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle: A movie that eliminates Hollywood gloss and pop cliches -- and in their place offers an honest look at young love and its pitfalls. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: Green confirms his status as the most atmospherically distinctive American movie director since Paul Thomas Anderson. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: Read more

Mike Clark, USA Today: Girls isn't fabulous, but you do feel its characters really have connected. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: An uneven work with a resonant central core. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: This earnest love story is borderline insufferable, and yet there are moments that, in their bold incoherence, have a startling emotional truth. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: It's a movie of deft impressions and telling human moments. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: It's about people who have no idea what to say, how to say it, what it means, where it leads: They just blunder through, clumsy and hopeful and tongue-tied and so human it breaks your heart. Read more