Growing up looking for 'The Real Girls'

Trust is very important for those living in a small town and trying to have relationships. After all, there are fewer people. You never know when or where you might run into an ex. That can cause discomfort, especially when hearts get broken.\nIn David Gordon Green's "All the Real Girls," trust anchors the proper boundaries that help a small southern town with a large textile mill survive. The town has hit a pattern where the men are stoic Valentinos and the women are accepting because they don't know any better. \nAs the film starts, Paul (Paul Schneider) and Tip (Shea Whigham) are best friends. They both also have a reputation for bedding women and then leaving soon thereafter. And that's created a sore spot among the women in the rural factory town where both grew up. When Paul begins seeing Noel (Zooey Deschanel), Tip's younger sister, Tip's antenna gets raised because he knows exactly how Paul operates and he doesn't want his sister serving as another notch on Paul's bedpost. \nNoel, however, is unlike any girl Paul has dated. She's thoughtful, funny, caring and a virgin. When Paul finds out she's a virgin, he holds off on the courtship. She wants to have sex with him because she trusts him, but he finds her virginity to be a daunting obstacle. The relationship continues in a happy, chaste manner. \nWhen Noel returns from a vacation at a lake house, the terms of their relationship have changed greatly. Paul's reputation as a ladies' man has so followed him that he doesn't know how to handle the shoe being on the other foot. His reciprocation of trust not being met may well force change in his life. \nGreen's style is very much influenced by Terrence Malick. His camera gazes around at his rural community. He wants the viewer to become as intimate with the locale as the characters. Deschanel continues to be something of the indie Reese Witherspoon -- pretty, smart and versatile. Used to playing the wacky friend role in films like "Abandon" and "The Good Girl," she handles her first shot at carrying a film with aplomb, her confusion caught in words, tears and actions. Schneider looks like a younger Dennis Quaid. He struck me with such a vulnerability though that I had trouble buying him as a lothario. This film is his coming-of-age story, but he realizes that he should have come of age a long time ago.