Movie Review: My Girl (1991) seen on cable tv and DVD

Drama; not recommended for young children; death implications throughout, some medical images, emotional scenes resulting from death, minor scenes which imply possible pedophilia

This movie follows the life of a young girl who is known as a hypochondriac as she attempts to come to terms with the reality of life and death following the death of her birth mother days prior to her birth. She must adjust to life when her father enters a new relationship as she is not fond of her new stepmother despite the stepmother’s attempts to play a role in her life.

For this movie, I don’t really want to talk about the movie itself but rather the actress who plays the little girl. I was her exact age in the film when I first saw this movie, (it was 2001 when I first saw it and I was 11 years old,) and I remember admitting to mom that I had a bit of a crush on her at that time. Therefore, I always used to get excited when I heard it was coming on television. In my younger years following seeing this movie, I had jokingly wished my mother would adopt her or that she would move next door to me. One thing I will say is that her upbringing in this film was nowhere near as good as mine was and I actually have come to this realization just recently. This is one of two movies I have reviewed where the main character is estranged from their mother, (I actually think the reasons behind both was death,) where they were forced to live a life with their father as a result. In my case, I have never really felt like I had a father until my stepfather came around. Therefore, we are different from that perspective and I would much rather mom’s guidance than my father’s guidance. It is shown throughout this film to be the case between the girl and her father, including some scenes where she announces her intention to leave her house, especially after he started dating her soon to be stepmother. I have to be honest in saying that I also have a stepmother I cannot stand as I feel her involvement around my father is what changed his perspective on how to be a parent and he didn’t care much about any of us after her arrival. Sometimes I forget that I have a stepmother as she is not regarded as a family member in my eyes. This is a similarity between me and the girl in the movie as she is shown to dislike her stepmother as well. If I had to watch this movie again on my own decision though, I probably wouldn’t as this was a movie I saw with mom as a child and seeing these movies nowadays bring back memories of my childhood which make me miss those moments. Watching it these days would not be the same as watching it back then in me eyes. However, I have come across this in the kitchen area of where I live where other people were watching it but I don’t really sit and watch anything of interest on that tv and it wasn’t my decision to put it on. Having said that, it was a good movie…..one that I enjoyed as an 11 year old but maybe not so much as an adult. All things considered though, the movie itself was good and I would indeed recommend it.

By the way, the other film which depicted a scenario where a mother is not present and is forced to live with her father is Fear (1996.) To me, this is actually one fault that the movie has within it similar to Fear. This is the lack of a mother and the emphasis on a father. In my eyes, any good household is one where the mother is present as the father is only a secondary parent. Remember that this is just my opinion. I was raised in a household with no father but a great mother….one whose efforts towards me growing up have not gone unnoticed and she will forever be praised for her efforts. The problem is that I feel bad for those characters who have to live life without a mother figure in their life. I know this applies to some people and assuming their father isn’t as bad as mine was, it might work for them but I’m talking about myself. Having a father did me no favours growing up and though it is not my intention to judge those people who live lives with a single father, for the case of this review, (just like the review for Fear,) the otherwise perfect score would unfortunately be downgraded as this movie depicts a scenario that I’m glad doesn’t apply to me. To me, it’s like looking at what could have been assuming that mom wasn’t there for me or had passed long before my father did leaving him to raise me…whatever the reason for mom’s permanent departure, it gives me a glimpse into the life I could have had which is also the life that I don’t want. However, seeing these movies tends to play tricks on my brain and makes me believe that there unreasonable circumstances could indeed apply to me. At the end of the day, I know they don’t but I have to be honest in saying these situations, (ones where a person’s father is their primary caregiver and not their mother for whatever reason,) bothers me. I want to make it clear though that I have never judged anyone who I know personally who lives their life in this way, nor will I ever start judging those around me who do. The fact remains though that when it comes to these movies, well, it may not be a horrible movie if the rest of it was good despite that aspect of it, but it will cause a decrease in the quality of the movie in question. This movie did indeed have it’s good points but one really bad point and this is unfortunately what will cause this otherwise perfect movie’s score to take a nose dive. Even though it’s true I have a lot of positive things to say about this little girl, it’s the one negative thing I have to say about her that makes all of the difference. Whether in a movie or in real life, I feel like everybody should have a great mother like I do but unfortunately, this girl didn’t so I have to take this into consideration when determining this movie’s overall rating. It wasn’t bad but it could have been better.

Movie rating: 5 out of 10

Next movie review: TBD