Uptown Girls film review

certificate_12A

UPTOWN GIRLS

The movies have thrown up plenty of preternaturally mature kids, but few with the obsessional neuroses of the eight-year-old Ray Schleine (Dakota Fanning). In therapy since the age of three, the germaphobe is prone to hissy fits like, "If I don't get eight hours [sleep], my immune system crashes." None of which is generally considered endearing behaviour in a young girl, but as the reasons for her demeanour become apparent, so contempt turns to understanding. This shift is made all the easier by the performance of Fanning whose seasoned acting is on a par with her character's advanced development.

While Ray has grown up all too quickly, at 22 the frivolous Molly Gunn (Brittany Murphy) has successfully delayed the onset of adulthood. It's only when their paths cross that each is able to teach the other what it's like to finally act their age. Uptown Girls offers little in the way of originality, being effectively a cornier, female version of About A Boy. What saves it from a glib dismissal is the engaging pairing of its two stars.

Molly is the carefree partying shopaholic daughter of a famous rock star who died, along with her mother, when Molly was eight, leaving her an orphan and wealthy. But when her accountant disappears with her inheritance, the ill-prepared Molly has to find a job. The precocious brat Ray burns through nannies, but when Molly takes the job, despite appearances and a few battles, the two turn out to have a lot in common.

It's their relationship that forms the film's emotional core. The other characters and plot lines seem vague in comparison and provide more padding than substance. The most notable involves Molly's affair with an aspiring singer, Neal (Jesse Spencer).

Aimed primarily at teenage girls, Uptown Girls is unconcerned with painting a realistic world, instead it resembles some fantasized fairy tale environment filled with impossibly beautiful people, most of whom love to scream, "Oh, my god!" Ostensibly a fluffy comedy, it does dabble occasionally with a darker hue, but more to illicit sympathy than to offer any dramatic depth.

Still, the irrepressible Murphy is always a treat and teamed with the unerringly sharp Fanning, the two Uptown Girls are downright cute.