Uptown Girls
Studio: MGM
Website: http://www.uptowngirlsmovie.com/
Release Date: 2003-08-15
Cast: Brittany Murphy, Dakota Fanning, Heather Locklear, Jesse Spencer, Donald Faison
Director: Boaz Yakin
Screenwriter: Julia Dahl, Lisa Davidowitz, Mo Ogrodnik
WorkNameSort: Uptown Girls
Our Rating: 2.00
If you own a statuette that declares, “I wuv you THIS much,” you’re the target audience for this sickeningly sweet girl-power pic, in which the spoiled daughter (Brittany Murphy) of a dead rock star bonds with a bratty, anal-retentive moppet (Dakota Fanning). Cutesy montages take the place of relationship development, and the cross-generational angle frequently loses out to scenes of Murphy’s slutty party girl seducing a mopey singer/songwriter. (So much for taking the kids.) Fanning, who was the only respectable element of “I Am Sam,” does what she can in the part of a hostile, pint-sized Felix Unger, and Murphy brings a modicum of zip to her unappealing character. But both performances are vanquished by the film’s nauseating feel-good climax, which should be off-limits to diabetics.
This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2003.