Uptown Girls: Review By moviegeek

There are three good things in Uptown Girls:

1. A scene where Brittany Murphy jumps off of a park bridge into waist-deep contamination.

2. A couple of clever dialogue spats between Dakota Fanning and Murphy.

3. The end credits.

Because of those elements and a weird, purposeless charisma, this film barely earns back my 1.5 star rating.

In the past months, I don't recall ever seeing a film that even close to the mess that this movie creates. Uptown Girls is entirely unsuitable for kids (or people for that matter...), devoid of any charm or wit to its material, and aggressively obnoxious. The fact that a pet pig is used a plot device should tell you to avoid this wretched work.

Brittany Murphy is a lonely young woman who, after losing her apartment and welfare, must get a job to support herself. She lands herself caring for the spoiled daughter of a rich family, played by Dakota Fanning. They, of course, will learn to befriend each other. The problem is, that doesn't happen until the last 20 minutes of the movie.

The rest is an obnoxious collection of distractingly annoying characters. Brittany Murphy's desperation to get a man is sickening, especially when she is supposed to be a role model for a young 8-year-old. She overacts the entire movie in a rather drunken way. Dakota Fanning plays the daughter from hell you would never want bossing you around. Absurdly rude and consistently disrespectful, by the time she is 'good' in the end, I didn't even care.

When they are friends, they spend the time reminiscing over the loved ones they've lost. Shouldn't they be friends because they like each other, not because they've each lost someone? The entire result is a queasy, unpleasant concoction of juvenile proportions.

With its eerie fascination with mirrors (seriously, it's ridiculous), to Brittany Murphy's lips (which act more than the rest of her body does), one tends to look at the most uninteresting of things to cope with the sheer stupidity everywhere else. Inappropriate for the girls, too stupid for the women, too hormonal for males, Uptown Girls needs to secure a spot on your "I vow to never watch this movie" list.