Good Girl, The

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Aniston and Reilly give the best of many excellent performances. A few plotty scenes aside, this quietly directed drama paints a sensitive, sympathetic portrait of modern malaise, and has a smart sense of humor as a bonus.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

The extraordinary quality of White's script and Arteta's direction lifts the meticulously cast actors to the height of their abilities. "Friends" star Aniston digs deep but is never showy. Reilly reveals the tenderness, vulnerability and hidden depth that can lurk within a slob, and Nelson has some of the film's most outrageously funny and inspired moments.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

A slow burn. A portrait of the mundane humor and horror of everyday life, it scalds nerves you may have never thought existed. And yet the film is funny, almost hilariously at times.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Aniston delivers an utterly un-Rachel-like performance. It's neurosis-free and unmannered, by turns funny, sad and profound.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

There's more to everyone here than we're initially led to think. The Good Girl is like a neurotically charged post-millennial take on the trailer-park comedies that Jonathan Demme once claimed for himself.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Doesn't have the daring lunacy of "Chuck and Buck," the previous collaboration by director Miguel Arteta and writer Mike White. Yet it gets closer to the troubled, lonely soul of its main character.

USA Today Claudia Puig

A sharp-tongued, subtly nuanced tragicomedy starring Jennifer Aniston, who shows her depth as a serious actress in this dark tale.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

It's a deft sleight-of-story Aniston, White and Arteta pull off, giving us a character who seems more than she is, but is really less than she appears.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Jennifer Aniston has at last decisively broken with her "Friends" image in an independent film of satiric fire and emotional turmoil. It will no longer be possible to consider her in the same way.

New York Post Megan Lehmann

A comedy as black as the asphalt desert of a mall parking lot.

Variety David Rooney

This one comes up short in terms of visual flair. But it delivers amusingly observed characters, consistent laughs underscored by the poignancy of unfulfilled existences and winning performances from a terrific cast captained by Jennifer Aniston.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Like "Chuck & Buck," The Good Girl is a droll, well-acted, character-driven comedy with unexpected deposits of feeling.

New Times (L.A.) Gregory Weinkauf

Arteta targets Middle American ennui with wit, compassion and no shortage of ornery malaise.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Succeeds as a moody, evocative, and pleasing film, one that underscores its indie roots in sentiment as well as style

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

There's a shallowness about The Good Girl that can't always be excused as an accurate portrayal of a shallow milieu -- in the end, just like Justine, it's not as good as it could have been.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A smart, arch and rather cold-blooded comedy.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

There's humor in it, and sadness, and an acid-tinged humor that is miles away from the branded levity of "Friends." More power to Aniston for feeling the need to try something different, and then doing it -- well.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

In Aniston's previous film roles, the "Friends" star has made little impression, but under the direction of the gifted young Arteta, she's certainly grown to fill the big screen here, and looks ready to leap from TV to film.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Offers nothing more spectacular than a character study. And, although The Good Girl's protagonist may be trapped by routine, that's one claim that can never be made about the movie.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Never crosses over into meanness, and even the most satirical character has a moment of empathy.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

It's tough, astringent, darkly funny and . . . well, it's also generic, untidy, condescending and mild of impact rather than stunning.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Aniston plays her depressed character with enough conviction to guarantee that practically every scene will be stolen out from under her by minor characters, among them a pricelessly funny Zooey Deschanel as a Retail Rodeo employee who vents her rage and frustration on the customers.

Chicago Reader Bill Stamets

This is hardly Flaubert, but it is a fairly beguiling look at moral calculation.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

At its best, The Good Girl is a refreshingly adult take on adultery, where the dark humor and offbeat fringe characters don't get in the way of the consequences or the quiet declarations of devotion slipped between the words.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Despite Aniston's hard work, Good Girl could be better.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Even during the most intense moments, it's hard to shake the impression that the conspicuously buff-and-polished Justine is only visiting this drab world, her miserable life an interesting career move.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

There are times when The Good Girl is so low-key it damn near flatlines. Luckily, White creates compelling characters with a few deft brush strokes. The actors fill in the rest.

Time Richard Schickel

What makes The Good Girl worthwhile is its performances. All the actors play their entrapment with a weirdly convicted blankness. That's especially true of Aniston.

Slate David Edelstein

The movie gets funnier and less obvious as it goes along, and Zooey Deschanel is a hoot as a disdainfully bored co-worker who ritually insults the zombie chain-store shoppers -- but what is The Good Girl saying, exactly?

Film Threat Don R. Lewis

While many questions and motivations are left unanswered, overall the film wins out with it's stark truths and slightly twisted pay off's along the way.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Never quite establishes its own identity, and when you remember it in two years it's likely to be that movie you saw that you kind of liked with that girl in it, what's her name, from TV.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Only pretends to care about good people who sometimes do bad things. In fact, it hasn't got time for the pain.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

The Good Girl isn't really the title of this movie at all. Instead, it's now widely known as The Movie That Proves Jennifer Can Act.

Wall Street Journal Nancy deWolf Smith

Although The Good Girl is peppered with amusing small-town eccentrics in refreshingly original guises, it gets off to a long, slow start.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Skillfully sketches the parameters of its small-town existence but never quite fleshes out the inhabitants of those parameters. Without the well-considered humor and strongly defined characters of "Chuck," only a good cast stands between Girl and some familiar stereotypes.