My Girl
![Watch film My Girl — MY GIRL [1991] - Official Trailer (HD)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KSyKO0Lklmo/sddefault.jpg)
Short description
My Girl centres on eleven-year-old Vada Sultenfuss, who lives with her widowed father, Harry, in a house that doubles as his funeral business. The constant presence of death has left Vada preoccupied with it, and she keeps her worries mostly to herself, sharing them with her best friend Thomas J. Sennett, a boy her own age who is allergic to nearly everything. Her father has been emotionally closed off since his wife died, until he hires Shelly DeVoto and begins to fall for her. Vada resents the change and sets out to undermine the relationship, while also nursing a crush on her English teacher and signing up for a summer poetry class to be near him.
The film was directed by Howard Zieff, its fourth feature in a run that began with Private Benjamin in 1980 and included The Dream Team in 1989; a sequel, My Girl 2, followed in 1994. Laurice Elehwany wrote the screenplay and Brian Grazer produced. Anna Chlumsky plays Vada, with Macaulay Culkin as Thomas J., Dan Aykroyd as Harry, Jamie Lee Curtis as Shelly, and Richard Masur and Griffin Dunne in supporting roles, among a credited cast of twenty-three.
Made for a modest sum by studio standards, it earned more than three times its budget worldwide, a solid return. On IMDb it sits at 6.9 from around 97,000 votes, while on TMDB it scores 7.4 from a much smaller sample; a critics' rating of 6 out of 10 from twenty-three reviews places it close to the general audience's view.
What's left behind the scenes
- Filming took place from January 21 to March 30, 1991, primarily in Florida and partially in Los Angeles, California.
- The film captures Macaulay Culkin's first on-screen kiss.
- Due to a scene in which the characters of Anna Chlumsky and Macaulay Culkin become blood brothers by mixing their blood from self-inflicted cuts, the British Board of Film Classification demanded the inclusion of a special warning to children about the dangers of such actions due to the possibility of contracting HIV.
- The house used in filming as the home of the Saltenfuss family was actually a small private hotel in the town of Bartow, Florida.
- The original screenplay participated in the open-to-all Nicholl Fellowships competition for aspiring screenwriters, sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but did not even pass the first stage of selection.
- The project's original title was “Born Jaundiced,” which translates to “Born with Jaundice.” For obvious reasons, the producers were not enthusiastic and wanted to change it, announcing a $500 prize to the studio employee who would suggest the best option. Many diverse ideas were submitted and rejected for various reasons, and ultimately the producer Brian Grazer himself came up with the title “My Girl” which satisfied everyone.
- The American MPAA gave the film a PG-13 rating due to its ending, but the filmmakers appealed on the grounds that the age rating could not be based solely on one, relatively small part of the film, and won a rehearing.
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