Will any film this year feature a moment more pretentious than David asking Lily to read a few lines of Sylvia Plath's poetry before their first kiss? That guy deserves a smack to the kisser all right.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jul 25, 2014

Very Good Girls has a breezy yet bittersweet, vaguely nostalgic vibe.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 25, 2014

Despite a finely wrought lead performance by Dakota Fanning, the drama feels more like the stuff of a mild - and dated - YA novel than an involving exploration of female experience.

| Jul 24, 2014

One insurmountable problem is that the stars, especially Ms. Olsen, 25, are too old for their roles. Another is that the movie has more characters than it can begin to accommodate in 91 minutes.

| Jul 24, 2014

Disappointingly, Foner's young heroines are defined primarily by their reactions to other people. It's a great credit to Olsen and, especially, Fanning that they manage to make these characters vibrant and sympathetic anyway.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 24, 2014

A drama that feels like an old person's idea of what young people are like.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Jul 23, 2014

Holbrook acts as a discount Ryan Gosling -- all the mumbling and silence at just 20 percent of the charisma.

| Original Score: C | Jul 23, 2014

Very Good Girls is a film one wants to like but can't. It just doesn't work.

| Jul 22, 2014

More disheartening than the unremarkable visual style is that the female leads aren't given ample space to develop as dynamic characters beyond the most urgent confines of the script's scenarios.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 20, 2014

With a screenplay lacking the freshness and credibility of Foner's best work, this all-around misfire saddles a miscast group of name thesps with some strikingly awful costume design.

| Jan 23, 2013

Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen are wasted in veteran screenwriter Naomi Foner's underwhelming directing debut.

| Jan 23, 2013

A romantic drama that features sympathetic performances from Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen that can't overcome the story's general blandness.

Full Review | Jan 23, 2013