My Girl (film)

1991 film by Howard Zieff

This article is about the 1991 film. For the 2003 Thai film, see Fan Chan.

My Girl

Theatrical release poster

Directed by| Howard Zieff
Written by| Laurice Elehwany
Produced by| Brian Grazer
Starring|

* Dan Aykroyd
* Jamie Lee Curtis
* Macaulay Culkin
* Anna Chlumsky
* Griffin Dunne

Cinematography| Paul Elliott
Edited by| Wendy Greene Bricmont
Music by| James Newton Howard

Production
company

Imagine Entertainment

Distributed by| Columbia Pictures

Release date

* November 27, 1991 (1991-11-27)

Running time

| 102 minutes
Country| United States
Language| English
Budget| $17 million[1]
Box office| $121.5 million

My Girl is a 1991 American coming-of-age romantic comedy-drama film directed by Howard Zieff, written by Laurice Elehwany, and starring Dan Aykroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis, Macaulay Culkin, and Anna Chlumsky in her first role in a major motion picture. The film tells the story of an 11-year-old girl living in Madison, Pennsylvania, during the summer of 1972. The film's title refers to the classic 1964 song of the same name by The Temptations, which is also featured in the film's end credits. A book based on the film was written by Patricia Hermes.[2] The film grossed $121 million on a budget of $17 million. A sequel, My Girl 2, was released in 1994.

## Plot

[edit]

Vada Sultenfuss is an 11-year-old girl living in Madison, Pennsylvania in the summer of 1972. Her father, Harry Sultenfuss, operates the town's funeral parlor, which is also their home. Her upbringing leads her to suffer from hypochondria and develop an obsession with death, which her father fails to understand. Also living with them are "Gramoo", Vada's paternal grandmother, whose recent dementia accentuates Vada's worries, and Harry's older brother Phil.

Vada hangs out with Thomas J. Sennett, an unpopular boy her age who is allergic to "everything". Other girls tease them, thinking they are more than just friends. Thomas J. often accompanies Vada when she visits the doctor, who assures her that she is not sick.

During the summer, Vada befriends Shelly DeVoto, the new makeup artist at the funeral parlor, who provides her with guidance. Vada has a crush on Mr. Bixler, her fifth-grade teacher, and hears about an adult poetry writing class he is teaching. Wondering how to pay for the class, she takes money from a cookie jar in Shelly's camper. During her first class, when suggested to write about what is in her soul, Vada fears that she killed her mother, who died two days after childbirth.

When Harry and Shelly start dating, Vada's attitude towards Shelly changes. One night, she follows them to a bingo game and brings Thomas J. along to disrupt it. On the Fourth of July, when Shelly's ex-husband Danny shows up, Vada hopes that Shelly will take him back, to no avail.

Following the holiday, Vada and Thomas J. knock down a beehive in the woods. Vada loses her mood ring in the process, and while they look for it, the bees swarm and force them to run away. Harry invites Vada to a carnival; she becomes distressed when he and Shelly announce their engagement there, leading her to contemplate running away.

Later, Vada screams when she believes that she is bleeding. Shelly explains that she is experiencing her first period. As Vada accepts that this happens only to girls, she angrily rebuffs Thomas J. when he comes to visit. A couple of days later, Vada and Thomas J. sit under a willow tree, wondering what a first kiss feels like, so they share one. After Vada heads home, Thomas J. returns to the woods to search for her mood ring. Unaware that the beehive they knocked down is still active, he is killed by the bees due to his allergy.[3]

Harry delivers the tragic news to Vada, who stays in her bedroom for a full day. Shelly suggests that Harry console Vada, but he brushes her off. Shelly urges him to realize the significance of his daughter's pain. When Vada leaves her bedroom and sees Thomas J.'s body in his casket, she runs away out of grief to Mr. Bixler's house, wanting to stay with him, but flees after discovering that he is engaged.

Vada grieves by the willow tree where she and Thomas J. hung out. When she returns home, everyone is relieved, including Shelly, whom Vada begins to accept as her future stepmother. Her grief also mends the rift between her and her father, who assures Vada that her mother's death was not her fault.

Toward the end of summer, Vada and her father comfort Mrs. Sennett, who still struggles with her son's death. She returns Vada's mood ring, which Thomas J. had found. On the last day of her writing class, Vada reads a poem in memory of her best friend.

## Cast

[edit]

* Dan Aykroyd as Harry Sultenfuss
* Jamie Lee Curtis as Shelly DeVoto
* Macaulay Culkin as Thomas J. Sennett
* Anna Chlumsky as Vada Margaret Sultenfuss
* Richard Masur as Phil Sultenfuss
* Griffin Dunne as Mr. Jake Bixler
* Ann Nelson as Gramoo Sultenfuss
* Anthony R. Jones as Arthur

## Production

[edit]

The screenplay, written by Laurice Elehwany, was originally titled Born Jaundiced, and was purchased by Imagine Entertainment in July 1990.[4] On August 24, 1990, it was reported in Daily Variety that the screenplay had been re-titled to I Am Woman, but was subsequently changed to its final title, My Girl, in the spring of 1991.[4] Elehwany based the fictional setting of Madison on the small towns in southwestern Pennsylvania where she grew up.[4]

Culkin and Chlumsky were cast in the lead roles of Thomas J. and Vada, respectively, in January 1991.[4] Filming took place in Bartow and Sanford, Florida beginning in February 1991.[4] Exteriors of the Sultenfuss home were supplied by a real Victorian home in Bartow, while the house's interiors were built on a soundstage in Orlando.[4]

When My Girl was submitted to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in September 1991, it was rated PG-13.[4] Later that month, the film's producers won an appeal to have the film reclassified to a PG rating.[4]

## Release

[edit]

My Girl was released on November 27, 1991.[4]

### Critical response

[edit]

The film holds a 57% score on Rotten Tomatoes based on 23 reviews. The site's consensus states: "My Girl has a mostly sweet story and a pair of appealing young leads, but it's largely undone by its aggressively tearjerking ending."[5] Roger Ebert gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, writing: "The beauty in this film is in its directness. There are some obligatory scenes. But there are also some very original and touching ones. This is a movie that has its heart in the right place."[6] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly praised Chlumsky's performance in the film, but conceded that "there’s something discomforting about a movie that takes the experience of an audacious, conflicted child and reduces it to: She needs to Confront Her Feelings. My Girl has some sweet, funny moments (the cast is uniformly appealing), yet it unfolds in a landscape of paralyzing, pop-psych banality."[7]

Film critic Caryn James cited the film as being part of a "trend toward stronger, more realistic themes in children's films", specifically its representations of death, specifically that of a young child.[8] David Kehr of the Chicago Tribune wrote of the film: "If My Girl helps stimulate family discussions of death and loss, it will certainly have done some good in the world. But at the same time, its aesthetic interest is virtually nil... Though My Girl seeks to stir large, devastating emotions, Zieff seems afraid to touch on anything too difficult or unpleasant, lest it alienate his audience. The results are curiously gutless and unmoving, as Zieff finds himself stuck with a sentimentality without substance, a poetry without pain."[9] Peter Rainer of the Los Angeles Times was similarly critical of the film's "syrupy" elements, concluding: "The mixture of winsomeness and deadpan frights in My Girl ought to be weirder and more interesting than it is. After all, a girl who survives a household where bodies are embalmed in the basement is the kind of plucky heroine that movies about kids need right now. Or movies about adults, for that matter."[10]

Janet Maslin of The New York Times was critical of the screenplay for being made up of "loose ends bound together only by intimations of mortality and family crisis," summarizing: "It's not hard for the maudlin My Girl to make its audience weepy at the sight of America's favorite kid in an open coffin. But it is difficult for this film to mix the sugary unreality of a television show with such a clumsy and manipulative morbid streak."[11] Variety noted: "Plenty of shrewd commercial calculation went into concocting the right sugar coating for this story of an 11-year-old girl's painful maturation, but [the] chemistry seems right."[12]

### Box office

[edit]

My Girl opened at No. 2 with $12,391,783, grossing $59,489,799 domestically,[1] and $62 million internationally[13] for a worldwide total of $121,489,799.

## Music

[edit]

The soundtrack of the film contains several 1960s and 1970s pop hits, in addition to the title song (by The Temptations), including "Wedding Bell Blues" (The 5th Dimension), "If You Don't Know Me by Now" (Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes), "Bad Moon Rising" (Creedence Clearwater Revival), "Good Lovin'" (The Rascals), and "Saturday in the Park" (Chicago). When Vada gets upset, she plugs her ears and sings "Do Wah Diddy Diddy", the Manfred Mann version of which is also included on the soundtrack album. In addition, Vada and Thomas J. play "The Name Game" and sing "Witch Doctor", while Vada has posters of the Broadway musical Hair, the Carpenters, and Donny Osmond on her bedroom wall.

### Certifications

[edit]

Region  | Certification | Certified units/sales

|
|

Australia (ARIA)[14] | Platinum  | 70,000^

^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b "My Girl". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved June 15, 2015.
2. ^ Hermes, Patricia; Elehwany, Laurice (1991). My Girl (FIRST EDITION 4th Printing ed.). New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 978-0-671-75929-2.
3. ^ Carrigan, MM (September 22, 2021). "The Bees in 'My Girl' Prepared Me for the Horrors of Real Life". Vice. Retrieved October 22, 2023.
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i "My Girl". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved September 7, 2018.
5. ^ "My Girl". Rotten Tomatoes.
6. ^ Ebert, Roger (November 27, 1991). "My Girl". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved June 15, 2015 - via RogerEbert.com.
7. ^ Gleiberman, Owen (December 6, 1991). "My Girl". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved August 29, 2018.
8. ^ James, Caryn (December 1, 1991). "FILM VIEW; Reality Comes With the Popcorn". The New York Times. Retrieved August 30, 2018.
9. ^ Kehr, David (November 27, 1991). "'My Girl' Wallows In Weeping Generalizations". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on 2018-09-06. Retrieved September 7, 2018.
10. ^ Rainer, Peter (November 27, 1991). "MOVIE REVIEW : A Conventional 'My Girl' Brings Out the Hankies". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved September 5, 2018.
11. ^ Maslin, Janet (November 27, 1991). "Review/Film; Growing Up Surrounded By Death". The New York Times. Retrieved August 30, 2018.
12. ^ "Review: 'My Girl'". Variety. 1991. Retrieved June 15, 2015.
13. ^ Groves, Don (February 22, 1993). "Hollywood Wows World Wickets". Variety. p. 85.
14. ^ "ARIA Charts – Accreditations – 1992 Albums" (PDF). Australian Recording Industry Association. Retrieved 27 November 2021.

## External links

[edit]

Wikiquote has quotations related to My Girl (film).

Wikimedia Commons has media related to My Girl (film).

* My Girl at Box Office Mojo
* My Girl at IMDb
* My Girl at the TCM Movie Database
* My Girl at Rotten Tomatoes

* v
* t
* e

Films directed by Howard Zieff

* Slither (1973)
* Hearts of the West (1975)
* House Calls (1978)
* The Main Event (1979)
* Private Benjamin (1980)
* Unfaithfully Yours (1984)
* The Dream Team (1989)
* My Girl (1991)
* My Girl 2 (1994)

* v
* t
* e

Brian Grazer

Films produced|

* Night Shift (1982)
* Real Genius (1985)
* Spies Like Us (1985)
* Like Father Like Son (1987)
* Parenthood (1989)
* Kindergarten Cop (1990)
* Closet Land (1991)
* My Girl (1991)
* Far and Away (1992)
* Boomerang (1992)
* For Love or Money (1993)
* My Girl 2 (1994)
* Greedy (1994)
* The Paper (1994)
* The Cowboy Way (1994)
* Apollo 13 (1995)
* Sgt. Bilko (1996)
* Fear (1996)
* The Nutty Professor (1996)
* The Chamber (1996)
* Ransom (1996)
* Liar Liar (1997)
* Inventing the Abbotts (1997)
* Mercury Rising (1998)
* Psycho (1998)
* EDtv (1999)
* Life (1999)
* Bowfinger (1999)
* Beyond the Mat (1999)
* Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000)
* How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
* A Beautiful Mind (2001)
* Undercover Brother (2002)
* Blue Crush (2002)
* 8 Mile (2002)
* Intolerable Cruelty (2003)
* The Cat in the Hat (2003)
* The Missing (2003)
* Friday Night Lights (2004)
* Inside Deep Throat (2005)
* Cinderella Man (2005)
* Flightplan (2005)
* Fun with Dick and Jane (2005)
* Inside Man (2006)
* The Da Vinci Code (2006)
* American Gangster (2007)
* Changeling (2008)
* Frost/Nixon (2008)
* Angels & Demons (2009)
* Robin Hood (2010)
* The Dilemma (2011)
* Restless (2011)
* Cowboys & Aliens (2011)
* J. Edgar (2011)
* Tower Heist (2011)
* Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)
* Rush (2013)
* Get on Up (2014)
* The Good Lie (2014)
* In the Heart of the Sea (2015)
* Lowriders (2016)
* Inferno (2016)
* American Made (2017)
* The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018)
* Pavarotti (2019)
* Dads (2019)
* Rebuilding Paradise (2020)
* Hillbilly Elegy (2020)
* Tick, Tick... Boom! (2021)
* Thirteen Lives (2022)
* The Beanie Bubble (2023)
* Candy Cane Lane (2023)
* Eden (2024)
* Jim Henson Idea Man (2024)
* Music by John Williams (2024)
* After the Hunt (2025)

Films produced
and written|

* Splash (1984)
* Armed and Dangerous (1986)
* Housesitter (1992)

TV series created|

* Shadow Chasers (1985)

Related|

* Imagine Entertainment
* Ron Howard

* v
* t
* e

MTV Movie & TV Award for Best Kiss

1990s|

* Anna Chlumsky & Macaulay Culkin in My Girl (1992)
* Christian Slater & Marisa Tomei in Untamed Heart (1993)
* Demi Moore & Woody Harrelson in Indecent Proposal (1994)
* Jim Carrey & Lauren Holly in Dumb and Dumber (1995)
* Natasha Henstridge & Anthony Guidera in Species (1996)
* Will Smith & Vivica A. Fox in Independence Day (1997)
* Adam Sandler & Drew Barrymore in The Wedding Singer (1998)
* Gwyneth Paltrow & Joseph Fiennes in Shakespeare in Love (1999)

2000s|

* Sarah Michelle Gellar & Selma Blair in Cruel Intentions (2000)
* Julia Stiles & Sean Patrick Thomas in Save the Last Dance (2001)
* Jason Biggs & Seann William Scott in American Pie 2 (2002)
* Tobey Maguire & Kirsten Dunst in Spider-Man (2003)
* Owen Wilson, Carmen Electra & Amy Smart in Starsky & Hutch (2004)
* Ryan Gosling & Rachel McAdams in The Notebook (2005)
* Heath Ledger & Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain (2006)
* Will Ferrell & Sacha Baron Cohen in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2007)
* Briana Evigan & Robert Hoffman in Step Up 2: The Streets (2008)
* Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart in Twilight (2009)

2010s|

* Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart in The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2010)
* Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2011)
* Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2012)
* Jennifer Lawrence & Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook (2013)
* Emma Roberts, Jennifer Aniston & Will Poulter in We're the Millers (2014)
* Ansel Elgort & Shailene Woodley in The Fault in Our Stars (2015)
* Rebel Wilson & Adam DeVine in Pitch Perfect 2 (2016)
* Ashton Sanders & Jharrel Jerome in Moonlight (2017)
* Nick Robinson & Keiynan Lonsdale in Love, Simon (2018)
* Noah Centineo & Lana Condor in To All the Boys I've Loved Before (2019)

2020s|

* No award (2020)
* Chase Stokes & Madelyn Cline in Outer Banks (2021)
* Poopies & the Snake in Jackass Forever (2022)
* Madison Bailey & Rudy Pankow in Outer Banks (2023)

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