The Secret Life of Girls Reviews

Unlike so many of her peers, teenaged Natalie (Majandra Delfino) has always enjoyed the comforts and security of a two-parent home, but seventies sexual liberation finally catches up with her family when Natalie's father Hugh (Eugene Levy), a college professor, becomes infatuated with a student and abruptly walks out on them. Because both her parents behave like aging hippies, it's up to Natalie to instill stability in the eccentric household, which includes her mother Ruby (Linda Hamilton) and younger brothers Jim (Aeryk Egan) and Andy (Andrew Ducote). Forced to face the reality of papa being a rolling stone, Natalie and her siblings adjust to their situation quicker than their mother who becomes obsessed with locating Hugh's girlfriend and forcing a confrontation. In the midst of this domestic dysfunction, troubled Natalie palms herself off as a coed at a college mixer and has to talk an aroused frat brother out of date rape. Eventually, Ruby, who's been more a playmate than a parent to her children, pulls herself together and starts a new life instead of dwelling on retribution against her errant former spouse. In recent years, some fine movies about the passage from girlhood to young womanhood have emerged, like TUMBLEWEEDS and SLUMS OF BEVERLY HILLS; unfortunately, this isn't one of them. As is typically the case with contemporary coming-of-age films, the adults are sitcom-like caricatures and the soundtrack is drenched in nostalgia. Like the cover versions of the original tunes, the screenplay doesn't seem quite authentic either. Writer-director Sloan eschews any opportunity for emotional conflict in favor of bubbly disco-era ambience; as a result, the film's unrealized potential drifts overhead like a cloud of seventies incense.