I Watched All the Real Girls and You Should,Too
I Watched All the Real Girls and You Should,Too
Just maybe not on Tubi
Have you recently found yourself wide awake at 2 am, wondering what, exactly, Zooey Deschanel would sound like with a southern accent? Have you been startled with the sudden realization that you’ve never seen Patricia Clarkson dressed as a clown? Have you thought to yourself, “Perhaps my life would be complete if only I could see Danny McBride’s first film role, one in which he plays a character named Bust-Ass”? Have you ever been talking to a friend or family member and found your thoughts drifting to Paul Schneider’s perfectly imperfect face?
Well then, my friend, do I ever have the movie for you.
My brother, Alex, has been telling me to watch All the Real Girls for literally years and, for reasons unknown, I refused to do so. Hollis and I finally watched it a month ago and it really does have everything I love: Zooey D, Danny McBride, my man Paul, David Gordon Green at the helm, diners, a weird love affair, and, most importantly, North Carolina.
I don’t ever want to live anywhere other than Ohio (imagine me saying “Ohio forever” in a Tim Riggins voice, because that’s my level of devotion), but North Carolina is one of my favorite places. For starters, just like Ohio, the state bird is a cardinal, which is really convenient. Don’t have to remember a new bird! Saves some time! But I love it for non-bird reasons, too. We took a few Winfrey family vacations to NC in my childhood, and in 2019 I was able to go twice: to Winston-Salem for a book festival, and to Durham for a Judge John Hodgman recording. Both times, I just felt like, “this place is magical.” I love the landscape, I love the people, I love the bookstores, I love the food, and most importantly…I love the accents.
Specifically, I’m talking about Danny McBride here. I’m genuinely not sure if there’s a funnier person on earth than Danny McBride, and according to IMDB, this is his first film role. He comes out of the gate hot and absolutely steals the show playing a character named Bust-Ass (Bust-Ass!) and talking to Zooey D. about pancakes. I love him.
And I loved this movie, which I guess I should probably tell you a little bit about. It’s set in a small factory town in North Carolina, where Paul Schneider spends his days hanging out with his bros (one of whom is, again, named Bust-Ass). But then one of his friends’ little sisters comes back to town after being away at boarding school. She’s Zooey Deschanel, she’s beautiful, and he’s in love. But Paul Schneider has slept his way around town, and he knows he can’t tell his best friend that he’s going out with his little sister. So they have a clandestine relationship, one with limited physical contact.
This is another entry in the genre I like to call Nothing Happens Cinema, which (if you haven’t picked up on it yet) is one of my favorite genres. After watching something with a lot of plot or (yikes) CGI, I often need to recenter myself by watching Nothing Happens Cinema so I can remember what I really love: a movie that turns something relatively low stakes into something that feels life-or-death. On the surface, whether Paul Schneider and Zooey D. make it work doesn’t seem like the highest of stakes. The world will not literally end if they don’t end up together. But what the best movies do, and what this one does, is make you feel like the world will end if Zooey D. and Paul can’t work it out. Because that’s what it feels like when you’re that young! Especially if you’re living in a place where there aren’t that many chances, because there just aren’t that many people, period. It’s not like their town is getting an influx of new residents.
I wouldn’t ever describe this as a young adult movie, but it reminded me of what I like so much about YA as a genre, when it’s good. A good YA book isn’t tempering the characters’ feelings or giving a knowing wink to the adults reading to remind us that these feelings won’t last. Good YA takes youthful feelings seriously. It’s tumultuous when you fall in love for the first time, and those feelings are special and rare even when they look ridiculous from the outside.
And when I watched All the Real Girls, I was reminded of how very seriously I took my first college boyfriend, despite the fact that (for reasons I will soon tell you about) the entire situation was very ridiculous in hindsight.
I showed up at college ready to bust out of my small hometown and into a slightly larger town that, to me, felt like a metropolis. People from other cities or states would talk about how Miami was in the middle of nowhere, and I was perplexed. There were so many restaurants, not just a diner and a pizza place and an Amish restaurant! This was city life, as far as I was concerned.
I hit the ground ready to “yes and” my way through the year, and that’s how I found myself at a Renaissance Faire with a new friend and her boyfriend and a bunch of other guys, one of whom kept talking to me as we watched a joust. I’d spent all of high school being very boy crazy with nowhere for that energy to go except into the CDs I listened to on repeat. I’d known almost every boy at my school since kindergarten, and the ones I hadn’t known my whole life largely didn’t know I existed. I should also note that I was convinced I was hideous and unlovable, a belief I picked up because I was about to have a surgery to break my face (I wrote a whole book about it). But now I was here, at this Renaissance Faire in the middle of nowhere, and a boy obviously liked me.
His name was Charlie (not really, name changed to protect his privacy) and he didn’t go to college. He worked in construction and drove a truck and listened to metal. We went to a movie after the Ren Faire, and after that we spent all my free time together for weeks. I got a D on my first college test and I didn’t even care. I had unlocked the secret of life and happiness, and he had a truck.
Things with Charlie weren’t simple. Yes, he was hot. Yes, I loved driving over the rolling hills of southern Ohio with him, watching the leaves change and fall. But also, he did once almost get into a fight in a Wal-Mart parking lot (like, while I was with him). He did dump me not once, but twice. I did cry a lot. He did swear he wanted to marry me, despite the fact that we barely knew each other. There was, you might say, a lot going on.
And yet I felt devastated when we broke up. It felt like the rawest kind of awful, like I was walking around broken and exposed and everyone knew it. I’d had a feeling and that feeling didn’t stay. The moment you realize that’s possible, that people can say things and then take them back, is the moment you grow up.
In hindsight, it wasn’t a serious relationship at all. I was 18 and I hardly knew this guy. It had no real lasting effect on my psyche and I don’t think about him now other than as a fun anecdote about the time I dated someone who almost got into a physical altercation outside of a rural Ohio Wal-Mart (perhaps not that strange, given where I’m from).
But we’re not in hindsight in this movie. We’re there, in the moment, feeling it all along with them. And in the moment, it feels like absolute garbage, like the worst thing that could happen, like the world is ending. It’s easy to be cynical when you’re watching movies about young love as an adult—I watched Before Sunrise for the first time last year, and that movie just doesn’t hit as well at 35. But if you can let yourself go back there for an hour and a half, to remember what it felt like the first time you thought someone was gonna change your whole life, it can be deliciously sweet and sad and beautiful.
This isn’t a perfect movie—some scenes felt out of place, some of the dialogue felt a little shoe-horned—but it always feels, as the title suggests, real.
Stray thoughts:
- Hollis and I watched this on Tubi, which was great (free!) but meant there were ads inserted willy-nilly, with no regard for scene breaks. And they were the most depressing ads I’ve ever seen…almost entirely for slot-machine phone games. In one, Meghan Trainor described a game in a monotone voice, dead eyes staring straight at us, as All About that Bass played quietly in the background. In another, a pixelated version of Sharon Stone flashed across the screen, her forever frozen smile beseeching us to give up our money for a game I now cannot remember. It all made me feel sad in a way I couldn’t totally explain, which actually worked for the movie.
-Again, Danny McBride’s character is named Bust-Ass.
-I spend a lot of time thinking about Zooey D. Like, a lot a lot. Her transition from indie movie queen to sitcom queen made a lot of sense…she’s good at physical comedy and seemed to relish broad humor. But I’m more perplexed by her more recent career moves, notably becoming a personality instead of an actress. Is this a conscious decision? Did she not find roles that interested her anymore? Is it like how Reese pivoted into producing, expect Zooey pivoted into dating a Property Brother and sharing their renovated home together on social media? It’s just…she used to be so private! Did she actually want this all along? Did she grow to want different things when she became a mom? I have a lot of questions and very few answers. One thing I know in my heart to be true: I bet that Property Brother is actually a very kind boyfriend. He seems nice! All this to say: I think she’s quite good in this movie. You forget she’s her, if that makes sense. And I’ll always feel close to her, since I wrote for her website for so many years.
-There’s a part where Paul Schneider says “Why don't you put your fucking hair back on and come back? Just come on back.” It’s been weeks and I’m still thinking about his delivery. I love these accents.
Here’s what else I’ve been into this week:
WATCHING: We just finished Stranger Things. Hmm! I liked where it ended up (…for now), but I had a hard time with this season, and I say that as someone who liked or loved the other seasons. In general, I don’t like it when all my buddies get split up. Like the season of Gilmore Girls where Lorelai and Rory are fighting? No thank you. Get ‘em in a scene together. There was just a lot going on and at one point, drifting off to sleep, I said “Oh no, a fight scene” and Hollis very seriously said, “Uh-oh.”
LISTENING: For reasons that will forever remain a mystery, I felt called to listen to the Jimmy Eat World album Bleed American today. Current mental state: feeling Moved by an album from 2001. And I would just like to note that If You Don’t, Don’t still slaps. I need this now more than I ever did did!
READING: I guess my theme this week is “2001” because I’m reading the Dan Chaon short story collection Among the Missing. Wow. If you haven’t read it, do yourself a favor because I read one story a day and then spend all day thinking about that story. Big Me? Safety Man? I Demand to Know Where You’re Taking Me? Give me a break, they’re perfect. I’m back in college, spending all my weekends hunched over in a little library cubby writing short stories and dreaming about being a writer. I love this book!
That’s it for now. I hope I convinced at least a few people to watch All the Real Girls, although based on what I saw on Instagram, a lot of you have seen and loved it. Thank you, as always, for reading. It’s always a total comfort to write this weird newsletter and I appreciate you being here. Until next time, Bust-Ass forever.