The defence The Prestige Tourist
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
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My Girl
Comedy · Drama · 1991
Vada Sultenfuss is obsessed with death. Her mother is dead, and her father runs a funeral parlor. She is also in love with her English teacher, and joins a poetry class over the summer just to impress him. Thomas J., her best friend, is "allergic to everything", and sticks with Vada despite her hangups. When Vada's father hires Shelly, and begins to fall for her, things take a turn to the worse...
Movie details
My Girl
“When your Dad's an undertaker, your Mom's in heaven, and your Grandma's got a screw loose...it's good to have a friend who understands you. Even if he is a boy.”
1991 Comedy · Drama 1h 43m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
6.9 / 10
96.1K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
57 %
Tomatometer
Metacritic
56 / 100
Metascore
TMDB
7.4 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
Vada Sultenfuss is obsessed with death. Her mother is dead, and her father runs a funeral parlor. She is also in love with her English teacher, and joins a poetry class over the summer just to impress him. Thomas J., her best friend, is "allergic to everything", and sticks with Vada despite her hangups. When Vada's father hires Shelly, and begins to fall for her, things take a turn to the worse...
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over My Girl?
For the defence
The Prestige Tourist
“You like your greatness pre-approved.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Popcorn Loyalist
“Big screen, big feelings, no apologies.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Howard Zieff
Written by
Laurice Elehwany
Anna Chlumsky
Vada Sultenfuss
Macaulay Culkin
Thomas J. Sennett
Dan Aykroyd
Harry Sultenfuss
Jamie Lee Curtis
Shelly DeVoto
Richard Masur
Phil Sultenfuss
Griffin Dunne
Mr. Jake Bixler
Ann Nelson
Gramoo Sultenfuss
Court is in session
Put My Girl on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.