My Girl

The beauty in this film is in its directness. There are some obligatory scenes. But there are also some very original and touching ones. This is a movie that has its heart in the right place. Read full review

It’s an introduction to adolescent viewers of some of life’s most painful events, even if those events aren’t always depicted in the most realistic ways. And therein lies My Girl’s effectiveness. Read full review

My Girl is a pleasant surprise. It's sweet, offbeat and ultimately slight, but likable nevertheless for the emotional integrity it maintains in its story of a girl coming to terms with the death of someone close to her. It's one of the few American movies that tries to be honest about death and give kids credit for being able to cope with it, and that alone makes it recommendable. [27 Nov 1991, p.23]

Newcomer Anna Chlumsky shines in My Girl, a movie sure to hit the same sort of high note among pre-teen girls that Home Alone hit among pre-teen boys. [27 Nov 1991, p.3F]

My Girl, nominally a story about a gently wacky family but actually a no-holds-barred assault on the tear ducts, is one of those movies you want to hate -- but I don't think it's possible. [27 Nov 1991, p.D1]

Chlumsky's devotion to Culkin, a lovable wimp given to milk mustaches, sets us up for an emotional rainstorm. Only the strong will escape without a tear. [27 Nov 1991, p.1D]

Watching it, you can't quite figure out what the movie's audience is supposed to be. For parents and kids hoping for a Macaulay Culkin movie, a rude shock awaits. Also, the movie's themes may be too sophisticated for younger audiences; it deals, after all, with death and recovery. And yet, the treatment of these issues may be too pat for adults. It's an entertaining, often winning, movie, but you can't help but feel that the filmmakers never settled on what sort of movie they wanted to make. Read full review

Despite being an entirely formulaic heartstring-tugger with some finger-gag­ging moments, the performances are appealing, particularly the endearing Chlumsky. Read full review

My Girl isn't a must-see, it isn't as lyrical or as deeply moving as it should be, but it is a rare family film. It addresses serious subjects with honesty and earnestness. And it has a heroine worth crying for. [29 Nov 1991, p.5]

Plenty of shrewd commercial calculation went into concocting the right sugar coating for this story of an 11-year-old girl's painful maturation, but chemistry seems right. Laurice Elehwany's script neatly handles a number of details but on larger matters falls into predictable patterns.

My Girl has some sweet, funny moments (the cast is uniformly appealing), yet it unfolds in a landscape of paralyzing, pop-psych banality. Read full review

The movie is twinkly and antiseptic so that when tragedy hits big in the final half hour, it seems coercive. It's like a pipsqueak Terms of Endearment. Read full review

As directed by Howard Zieff, My Girl has a bizarrely light tone and an awkward pace, in part because it's hard for the director to keep track of the story's many half-developed subplots. Read full review

While no masterpiece, My Girl is a fine example of compassionate and tasteful filmmaking which features a number of charming moments, most of which are provided by Anna Chlumsky and Macaulay Culkin, while Dan Aykroyd (in a mildly eccentric but subdued role reminiscent of his recent turn in Driving Miss Daisy) and Jamie Lee Curtis lend able support. Read full review

Though My Girl seeks to stir large, devastating emotions, Zieff seems afraid to touch on anything too difficult or unpleasant, lest it alienate his audience. The results are curiously gutless and unmoving, as Zieff finds himself stuck with a sentimentality without substance, a poetry without pain. Read full review

Most of the names in My Girl are meant to seem a little peculiar. In fact, everything in My Girl is meant to seem a little peculiar. Which, I would say, is the problem with the movie. When eccentricity becomes as insistent as it does here, it's not really eccentricity any more, it's affectation. My Girl, which opens today, is a festival of affectation. [27 Nov 1991, p.E1]

Hard to hate, but if you actually want to love it, you've got to force yourself. [27 Nov 1991, p.E1]

The movie jerks tears shamelessly, it smugly mocks the political and fashion trends of the early 1970s, its characters make no sense at all, and it even makes fun of senility. [27 Nov 1991, p.C1]

As box-office packages go, My Girl may well become a big hit. The wrapping is colourful, even charming in spots, and that circle of black ribbon is a gravely clever touch. Get closer, though, and it's like those Christmas presents stacked around the department store tree - apparently real but really empty. [28 Nov 1991]

Of course, the selling point of this movie is the boy wonder Culkin, making his first screen appearance since the inexplicable megahit Home Alone. Relegated to a supporting role, Culkin is natural and appealing, a picture of blue-eyed innocence. What a more interesting movie you'd have if it were entitled My Guy. Read full review

My Girl may well have been intended as a tender way for parents to explain difficult subjects to their kids, but this botch of a movie explains nothing. Its fake nostalgia and cod compassion are as painfully awkward as adolescence itself and about as funny as a corpse. Read full review