I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m a sucker for movies that I watched as a kid. You can tell me as many times as you want that Matilda and Harriet the Spy are half-assed attempts at cinematic okay-ness, and I’ll still argue with you that they’re some of my favorite movies ever. I’ll also be the first to admit to you that, despite knowing that My Girl is one of the movies that fits into this 1990s kids-classic genre, I’ve never actually seen it until this week. Sure, sure, I knew the basics — romance between children, tragedy strikes when child dies, etc. — but I’d never actually watched the film. However, when it popped up on my Netflix queue this week I thought, “You know what? Let’s give it a shot.” Turns out a shot was all the kid would have needed to survive the damn thing.
Before I get into this review, let me preface it by reiterating this: I understand that it’s nostalgic. I understand that people love it because of its emotional resonance, because it brings you back to your youth, to a simpler time when movies didn’t have to be elite, they just had to be entertaining (and hey, what’s wrong with that, really?).
But let’s talk about it.
Motion State Review 