Justine Last, the simple-living heroine of the new film "The Good Girl," is a lot different than Rachel Green, the beauty queen mainstay of the hit TV series "Friends."
In her continued effort to gain respect on the silver screen, actress Jennifer Aniston gives a performance that carries absolutely no vestiges of her famous television persona.
Justine lives in a small Texas town, where she spends her days manning the cosmetics counter at a local drugstore. At night, she dreams of escaping her marriage to her house-painting, pot-smoking husband Phil (John C. Reilly).
Her existence is thrown into disarray after she meets fellow drugstore worker Holden (Jake Gyllenhaal), a brooding writer who fancies himself the next J. D. Salinger. Justine hopes that he can send a few waves through the monotony of her life.
Once they get involved via clandestine motel meetings and storeroom trysts, she finds herself further entangled when her husband's best friend, Bubba, (Tim Blake Nelson of "O Brother, Where Art Thou?") finds out about her secret activities.
While all of these events keep the pace plodding along and employ some interesting twists along the way, "The Good Girl" is a character study at its core. All the actors, especially Aniston, pull it off flawlessly.
Justine makes a series of bad choices during the course of the film. Aniston's involving performance makes Justine's experimentation and frantic attempts to cover her tracks both believable and compelling.
