ALL THE REAL GIRLS – david gordon green – 8.6 / 10

It would, of course, be an oversimplification to say that there are only two kinds of film dramas. There are, however, two opposing, polar opposite kinds of dramas with everything else (more or less) falling somewhere in between. On the one side you have the kind of drama that attempts to mimic life as closely as possible. The characters, settings, structure and style are almost indistinguishable from that of a documentary. Scenes can be long and meandering or short and seemingly without purpose. The actors are often not very attractive (or, if they are attractive, they’re dressed in such a way as to de-emphasize that attractiveness). The lighting is often drab. The shots are almost uniformly handheld. And, much like in life, this sort of drama almost never has any real sense of closure. For lack of a better term, let’s refer to this sort of film as ‘realist.’