Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
Vada Sultenfuss is obsessed with death. Her mother is dead, and her father runs a funeral parlor. She is also in love with her English teacher, and joins a poetry class over the summer just to impress him. Thomas J., her best friend, is "allergic to everything", and sticks with Vada despite her hangups. When Vada's father hires Shelly, and begins to fall for her, things take a turn to the worse...
My Girl is a warm, bittersweet coming-of-age drama with a genuinely affecting emotional core. The plot is charming but somewhat meandering, blending light comedy and melodrama with uneven tonal control. The acting is solid — Anna Chlumsky and Macaulay Culkin share a natural chemistry, and Dan Aykroyd turns in a surprisingly restrained performance — though nothing reaches truly exceptional heights. Cinematography is functional and period-appropriate but unremarkable, leaning on soft nostalgic visuals without particular artistry. Novelty is modest but real: the funeral-parlor setting and death-obsessed young protagonist give it a distinctive flavor, even if the coming-of-age template is familiar. The ending, however, is genuinely gutting — Thomas J.'s sudden death and Vada's raw grief struck an emotional chord that set this film apart from typical family fare and left a lasting cultural impression, earning a well-above-average mark.