Uptown Girls
Encyclopedia
Uptown Girls is a 2003 comedy film
directed by Boaz Yakin
and adapted from the story by Allison Jacobs into screenplay by Julia Dahl, Mo Ogrodnik and Lisa Davidowitz. It starred Brittany Murphy
as a 22-year-old living a charmed life as the daughter of a famous rock and roll musician. Dakota Fanning
, Heather Locklear
, Marley Shelton
, Donald Faison
and Jesse Spencer
also star.
) is a carefree and fun-spirited girl, living like a princess in a fairy tale. Her father was a popular rock-and-roll guitar player, who died in a plane crash with Molly's mother when she was a little girl. On her birthday in a nightclub, she meets Larraine "Ray" Schleine (Dakota Fanning
), a hypochondriac and uptight young girl in a bathroom. Ray turns out to be the daughter of Roma Schleine (Heather Locklear
), a well-known record company owner. There she also meets an ambitious Australian singer Neal (Jesse Spencer
), who is trying to get Roma to sign him a record deal. Molly immediately falls for him and invites him to her apartment after the party. When at her apartment, Molly shows an amazed Neal the collection of guitars that her father left behind when he died. Bored by Molly's strange behavior, which includes owning a pet pig named Mu, eating Pez, speaking French, and various other oddities, he eventually leaves her for his career, but she does not give up on him.
When Molly's accountant vanishes with her US$ 100,000,000 inheritance, she is left with nothing but debts, and she needs to find work in order to survive. But she has no previous experience or skills. She moves in with her best friend, Ingrid (Marley Shelton
), who tells her that in order to stay with her, she must find a job. She is hired to be Ray's babysitter. Ray, as it turns out, lives in a fancy uptown apartment with her mother, who is too busy with work and clubbing to pay attention to her. Ray's father is in a coma, and under the care of a private nurse in the apartment. Ray doesn't seem fazed by her father's state at all. When they first meet, Ray is extremely rude towards Molly and disapproves of her carefree attitude and tardiness. The two get in a fight while they wash the dishes, which leads to Molly attempting to leave the apartment. She is stopped by Ray, who says "When you work for me, you leave when I say you can leave". Molly informs her that she in fact doesn't work for her; that she is employed by her mother. Ray responds by saying that because of Roma's work schedule and Molly's status, she is technically working for her. Molly angrily storms out of the apartment, giving herself a bloody nose
as she slams a swinging door.
Ray attempts to maintain order in her life by stifling her emotions - she often quotes Mikhail Baryshnikov
: "Fundamentals are the building blocks of fun." She even feels this way about ballet
, her beloved passion, leaving practice early when the class begins dancing freestyle. After picking her up from ballet practice one day, Molly gives Ray her pet pig Mu as a gift. Molly attempts to show Ray how to have fun, which at first causes them to fight. The two go to the amusement park Coney Island, only to find out that it is closed for the season. That night, as they ride back home on the subway, Molly tells Ray about the night her parents died. As Ray goes to bed, the two get into a conversation about Molly, in which Ray accuses her of being scared of growing up. Molly begins to talk about an incident in her childhood shortly after her parents' death in which she ran away to Coney Island and sat down in the Spinning Teacup ride, spinning round and round over and over again. Molly begins crying and tells Ray that she had hoped they could go to Coney Island together. Ray holds Molly as she cries, and the two fall asleep in Ray's bed.
The next morning, Molly wakes up to find Ray gone. When she looks for her in the kitchen, she sees Neal there, and she finds out that he is sleeping with Roma in order to get a record deal. Later, Molly learns that Ray was in her father's room reading. She advises Ray to share her life with her father for his better recovery, telling her about a show she once saw about comatose people who recovered because their friends and relatives talked to them while they were still comatose. Ray does this, telling her comatose father all about Molly, ballet
, and Mu. The next day, Molly arrives at Ray's house to find that Ray's father is gone from his room. She learns from the nurse that he had died that afternoon. Devastated, Molly rushes to Ray to offer her condolences. Ray is disturbingly emotionless, and calmly orders Molly to leave. Later that night, Molly is called to Roma's office, where she is informed that she is fired. Molly begins to criticize Roma on her relationship with her daughter, saying she doesn't "...give her respect, you give her whatever she asks so that you don't have to deal with her." She then asks Roma if she knows certain things about Ray, such as what stage she is at in ballet, or how she likes to drink her tea. Molly tears up the payment Roma had given her, and angrily leaves her office.
Neal tries to get back together with Molly; since leaving her, he hasn't written a single song. But Molly refuses to be with him, as she now sees how selfish he is. She auctions her father's legendary guitar collection for financial support, and the whole collection is bought by a stranger on the phone. Days later, Molly gets a call from Roma, who tells her that Ray is missing and asks her for help. Molly searches desperately for Ray and eventually finds her in an amusement park sitting in the Teacup ride. The two ride the teacups for a bit, and afterward, as Ray vomits into a garbage can, Molly tries to comfort her. Ray at first reacts angrily and violently, but the two end up in a tearful embrace. Later, Molly attends Ray's father's funeral, where she reconciles with Ingrid, and sees that Roma is taking more of a part in Ray's life. Before Ray comes out to meet the rest of the guests at the funeral, she requests to speak to Molly alone.
After they talk, Molly tells Ray that they are going to be best friends. Ray says that grown-ups are never friends with kids, to which Molly responds "I don't see any grown-ups around here." Molly applies for Fashion Institute of Technology and gets positive reactions from them. She attends Ray's ballet recital. In the recital, Ray wears the tutu Molly made for her, and Neal makes an appearance as the lead singer, singing "Molly Smiles", a song Molly's father wrote for Molly. As he sings, he plays on one of her father's guitars, and some of the ballerinas hold his other guitars as they dance, proving that Neal was the one who bought the entire collection. Near the end of the recital, Ray does a freestyle dance, much to Molly's amusement. The scene fades with a shot of Molly smiling in the audience, and the credits role as a voice of Ray is heard: "Every story has an ending. But in life, every ending is just a new beginning."
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
directed by Boaz Yakin
Boaz Yakin
Boaz Yakin is an American screenwriter and film director based in New York City. Yakin studied filmmaking at New York City College and New York University.-Life and career:...
and adapted from the story by Allison Jacobs into screenplay by Julia Dahl, Mo Ogrodnik and Lisa Davidowitz. It starred Brittany Murphy
Brittany Murphy
Brittany Anne Murphy-Monjack , known professionally as Brittany Murphy, was an American actress and singer. She starred in films such as Clueless, Just Married, Girl Interrupted, Spun, 8 Mile, Uptown Girls, Sin City, Happy Feet, and Riding in Cars with Boys...
as a 22-year-old living a charmed life as the daughter of a famous rock and roll musician. Dakota Fanning
Dakota Fanning
Hannah Dakota Fanning , better known as Dakota Fanning, is an American actress. Fanning's breakthrough performance was in I Am Sam in 2001. As a child actress, she appeared in high-profile films such as Man on Fire, War of the Worlds, and Charlotte's Web...
, Heather Locklear
Heather Locklear
Heather Deen Locklear is an American actress best known for her television roles as Sammy Jo Carrington on Dynasty, Officer Stacy Sheridan on T.J...
, Marley Shelton
Marley Shelton
Marley Eve Shelton is an American film and television actress.Shelton began her acting career in her late teens, and appeared in several 1990s' television movies and shows. She made her film debut in the critically acclaimed drama Grand Canyon , and was cast in the films The Sandlot , Nixon , and...
, Donald Faison
Donald Faison
Donald Adeosun Faison is an American actor, comedian, and voice actor best known for his role as Dr. Chris Turk in the ABC comedy-drama Scrubs and as Murray in the film Clueless and the subsequent television series of the same name.Faison has also co-starred in the films Remember the Titans ,...
and Jesse Spencer
Jesse Spencer
Jesse Gordon Spencer is an Australian actor and musician. He is best known for his current portrayal of Dr. Robert Chase on the medical drama House and for playing Billy Kennedy in the Australian soap-opera Neighbours....
also star.
Plot
Molly Gunn (Brittany MurphyBrittany Murphy
Brittany Anne Murphy-Monjack , known professionally as Brittany Murphy, was an American actress and singer. She starred in films such as Clueless, Just Married, Girl Interrupted, Spun, 8 Mile, Uptown Girls, Sin City, Happy Feet, and Riding in Cars with Boys...
) is a carefree and fun-spirited girl, living like a princess in a fairy tale. Her father was a popular rock-and-roll guitar player, who died in a plane crash with Molly's mother when she was a little girl. On her birthday in a nightclub, she meets Larraine "Ray" Schleine (Dakota Fanning
Dakota Fanning
Hannah Dakota Fanning , better known as Dakota Fanning, is an American actress. Fanning's breakthrough performance was in I Am Sam in 2001. As a child actress, she appeared in high-profile films such as Man on Fire, War of the Worlds, and Charlotte's Web...
), a hypochondriac and uptight young girl in a bathroom. Ray turns out to be the daughter of Roma Schleine (Heather Locklear
Heather Locklear
Heather Deen Locklear is an American actress best known for her television roles as Sammy Jo Carrington on Dynasty, Officer Stacy Sheridan on T.J...
), a well-known record company owner. There she also meets an ambitious Australian singer Neal (Jesse Spencer
Jesse Spencer
Jesse Gordon Spencer is an Australian actor and musician. He is best known for his current portrayal of Dr. Robert Chase on the medical drama House and for playing Billy Kennedy in the Australian soap-opera Neighbours....
), who is trying to get Roma to sign him a record deal. Molly immediately falls for him and invites him to her apartment after the party. When at her apartment, Molly shows an amazed Neal the collection of guitars that her father left behind when he died. Bored by Molly's strange behavior, which includes owning a pet pig named Mu, eating Pez, speaking French, and various other oddities, he eventually leaves her for his career, but she does not give up on him.
When Molly's accountant vanishes with her US$ 100,000,000 inheritance, she is left with nothing but debts, and she needs to find work in order to survive. But she has no previous experience or skills. She moves in with her best friend, Ingrid (Marley Shelton
Marley Shelton
Marley Eve Shelton is an American film and television actress.Shelton began her acting career in her late teens, and appeared in several 1990s' television movies and shows. She made her film debut in the critically acclaimed drama Grand Canyon , and was cast in the films The Sandlot , Nixon , and...
), who tells her that in order to stay with her, she must find a job. She is hired to be Ray's babysitter. Ray, as it turns out, lives in a fancy uptown apartment with her mother, who is too busy with work and clubbing to pay attention to her. Ray's father is in a coma, and under the care of a private nurse in the apartment. Ray doesn't seem fazed by her father's state at all. When they first meet, Ray is extremely rude towards Molly and disapproves of her carefree attitude and tardiness. The two get in a fight while they wash the dishes, which leads to Molly attempting to leave the apartment. She is stopped by Ray, who says "When you work for me, you leave when I say you can leave". Molly informs her that she in fact doesn't work for her; that she is employed by her mother. Ray responds by saying that because of Roma's work schedule and Molly's status, she is technically working for her. Molly angrily storms out of the apartment, giving herself a bloody nose
Nosebleed
Epistaxis or a nosebleed is the relatively common occurrence of hemorrhage from the nose, usually noticed when the blood drains out through the nostrils...
as she slams a swinging door.
Ray attempts to maintain order in her life by stifling her emotions - she often quotes Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov is a Soviet and American dancer, choreographer, and actor, often cited alongside Vaslav Nijinsky and Rudolf Nureyev as one of the greatest ballet dancers of the 20th century. After a promising start in the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, he defected to Canada in 1974...
: "Fundamentals are the building blocks of fun." She even feels this way about ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
, her beloved passion, leaving practice early when the class begins dancing freestyle. After picking her up from ballet practice one day, Molly gives Ray her pet pig Mu as a gift. Molly attempts to show Ray how to have fun, which at first causes them to fight. The two go to the amusement park Coney Island, only to find out that it is closed for the season. That night, as they ride back home on the subway, Molly tells Ray about the night her parents died. As Ray goes to bed, the two get into a conversation about Molly, in which Ray accuses her of being scared of growing up. Molly begins to talk about an incident in her childhood shortly after her parents' death in which she ran away to Coney Island and sat down in the Spinning Teacup ride, spinning round and round over and over again. Molly begins crying and tells Ray that she had hoped they could go to Coney Island together. Ray holds Molly as she cries, and the two fall asleep in Ray's bed.
The next morning, Molly wakes up to find Ray gone. When she looks for her in the kitchen, she sees Neal there, and she finds out that he is sleeping with Roma in order to get a record deal. Later, Molly learns that Ray was in her father's room reading. She advises Ray to share her life with her father for his better recovery, telling her about a show she once saw about comatose people who recovered because their friends and relatives talked to them while they were still comatose. Ray does this, telling her comatose father all about Molly, ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
, and Mu. The next day, Molly arrives at Ray's house to find that Ray's father is gone from his room. She learns from the nurse that he had died that afternoon. Devastated, Molly rushes to Ray to offer her condolences. Ray is disturbingly emotionless, and calmly orders Molly to leave. Later that night, Molly is called to Roma's office, where she is informed that she is fired. Molly begins to criticize Roma on her relationship with her daughter, saying she doesn't "...give her respect, you give her whatever she asks so that you don't have to deal with her." She then asks Roma if she knows certain things about Ray, such as what stage she is at in ballet, or how she likes to drink her tea. Molly tears up the payment Roma had given her, and angrily leaves her office.
Neal tries to get back together with Molly; since leaving her, he hasn't written a single song. But Molly refuses to be with him, as she now sees how selfish he is. She auctions her father's legendary guitar collection for financial support, and the whole collection is bought by a stranger on the phone. Days later, Molly gets a call from Roma, who tells her that Ray is missing and asks her for help. Molly searches desperately for Ray and eventually finds her in an amusement park sitting in the Teacup ride. The two ride the teacups for a bit, and afterward, as Ray vomits into a garbage can, Molly tries to comfort her. Ray at first reacts angrily and violently, but the two end up in a tearful embrace. Later, Molly attends Ray's father's funeral, where she reconciles with Ingrid, and sees that Roma is taking more of a part in Ray's life. Before Ray comes out to meet the rest of the guests at the funeral, she requests to speak to Molly alone.
After they talk, Molly tells Ray that they are going to be best friends. Ray says that grown-ups are never friends with kids, to which Molly responds "I don't see any grown-ups around here." Molly applies for Fashion Institute of Technology and gets positive reactions from them. She attends Ray's ballet recital. In the recital, Ray wears the tutu Molly made for her, and Neal makes an appearance as the lead singer, singing "Molly Smiles", a song Molly's father wrote for Molly. As he sings, he plays on one of her father's guitars, and some of the ballerinas hold his other guitars as they dance, proving that Neal was the one who bought the entire collection. Near the end of the recital, Ray does a freestyle dance, much to Molly's amusement. The scene fades with a shot of Molly smiling in the audience, and the credits role as a voice of Ray is heard: "Every story has an ending. But in life, every ending is just a new beginning."
Cast
- Brittany MurphyBrittany MurphyBrittany Anne Murphy-Monjack , known professionally as Brittany Murphy, was an American actress and singer. She starred in films such as Clueless, Just Married, Girl Interrupted, Spun, 8 Mile, Uptown Girls, Sin City, Happy Feet, and Riding in Cars with Boys...
as Molly Gunn - Dakota FanningDakota FanningHannah Dakota Fanning , better known as Dakota Fanning, is an American actress. Fanning's breakthrough performance was in I Am Sam in 2001. As a child actress, she appeared in high-profile films such as Man on Fire, War of the Worlds, and Charlotte's Web...
as Larraine "Ray" Schleine - Marley SheltonMarley SheltonMarley Eve Shelton is an American film and television actress.Shelton began her acting career in her late teens, and appeared in several 1990s' television movies and shows. She made her film debut in the critically acclaimed drama Grand Canyon , and was cast in the films The Sandlot , Nixon , and...
as Ingrid - Donald FaisonDonald FaisonDonald Adeosun Faison is an American actor, comedian, and voice actor best known for his role as Dr. Chris Turk in the ABC comedy-drama Scrubs and as Murray in the film Clueless and the subsequent television series of the same name.Faison has also co-starred in the films Remember the Titans ,...
as Huey - Jesse SpencerJesse SpencerJesse Gordon Spencer is an Australian actor and musician. He is best known for his current portrayal of Dr. Robert Chase on the medical drama House and for playing Billy Kennedy in the Australian soap-opera Neighbours....
as Neal Fox - Austin PendletonAustin PendletonAustin Pendleton is an American film, television, and stage actor, a playwright, and a theatre director and instructor.-Life and career:...
as Mr. McConkey - Heather LocklearHeather LocklearHeather Deen Locklear is an American actress best known for her television roles as Sammy Jo Carrington on Dynasty, Officer Stacy Sheridan on T.J...
as Roma Schleine - Pell JamesPell James-Life and career:James grew up in Virginia with three sisters. In the early 2000s, she worked on the hit television series Law & Order and Law & Order:SVU. In 2005, she briefly appeared in the Jim Jarmusch film Broken Flowers and earned her first starring role for the film The King...
as Julie - Wynter Kullman as Holly
- Amy Korb as Kelli
Reception
The film opened at #5 at the U.S. Box office raking in $11,277,367 USD in its first opening weekend. Rotten Tomatoes gave the movie an Average Rating of 3.8/10 with 107 Reviews [Fresh:14 | Rotten:93]Trivia
- Following Brittany Murphy's death at the age of 32 on December 20, 2009, Dakota Fanning, at age 16, stated that she cherished the time they spent together while working on the film, and that she was "very grateful that [she] had the chance to work with [Murphy]."
- Jesse Spencer sings "Molly Smiles" in the movie, but lip-synced "Sheets of Egyptian Cotton", which was instead sung by Chris RodriguezChris Rodriguez-Biography:Rodriguez was born on March 7, 1960, in Bronx New York, and moved to Nashville, becoming a veteran of the scene in the early 1990s. His debut album, Beggar's Paradise, was released by Sony in 1999, by which time he had collaborated on projects with country and CCM acts such as Amy Grant,...
. - The Lampshade as a head accessory was the production team's idea, but Brittany Murphy had the idea to scrunch it up and use it as a barrette.