My Girl

My Girl is about 11-year-old Vada Sultenfuss, whose father, Harry, runs an undertaker's business in their home. Vada's mother died in childbirth, and since then her father has been a little beside himself. His relationship with Vada is therefore not very close, so Vada develops a strange relationship with death. In her longing for attention she constantly goes to the doctor on the pretext that she is suffering from one fatal disease or another. Vada does have a good friend, though, Thomas, who becomes her childhood sweetheart.

Revolutionary things happen when the make-up artist Shelly turns up and gets a job in the business. Shelly, you see, has an eye both for Vada's craving for attention and for Harry's virtues. Even though Vada at first becomes jealous of the new bond between her father and Shelly, the film leaves no doubt that the three will get on fine together.

It is a sad event that gives Vada a true sense of death and a better relationship with her father, who until now has been blind to his precocious daughter's many musings, but it will not be revealed here.

The bittersweet comedy My Girl is in many ways a true Hollywood product, but at the same time it has a sincerity that makes it hard to dismiss. The acting is fine and credible in all the roles, and the film made me both laugh and cry.