1994 film by Howard Zieff
My Girl 2 is a 1994 American comedy-drama film. A sequel to the 1991 film My Girl, it was directed by Howard Zieff from a screenplay written by Janet Kovalcik, and starring Dan Aykroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis, Anna Chlumsky and Austin O'Brien. Cast members Aykroyd, Curtis, Chlumsky and Richard Masur reprised their roles in the film which follows a now-teenaged Vada Sultenfuss, who travels from her home in suburban Pennsylvania to Los Angeles to find more information about her deceased mother.
A book based on the script was written by Patricia Hermes in 1994.
Plot
Vada Sultenfuss has matured from the 11-year-old hypochondriac in 1972 to a more serious teenager in early 1974. Her father Harry and his new wife Shelly DeVoto, whom he dated in the first film, are expecting a baby, and they all still live in the Sultenfuss funeral parlor in Madison, Pennsylvania. To accommodate the new baby, Vada moves into her late Gramoo's old bedroom. She struggles with these adjustments, along with figuring boys out. One of them from school, Kevin, seems to like her friend Judy, but Vada wonders if he likes her, too. Both her father and Shelly try to give Vada some boy advice, but it backfires.
Vada receives a school assignment to write an essay on someone she admires but has never met. She decides to write about her late mother, Margaret Ann Muldovan (Maggie), but has few sources to go on, all confined to a small box. Among its contents are programs of plays her mother acted in, a passport, and a mystery paper bag with a date scribbled on it. Vada expresses her desire to travel someday, so Shelly concocts a plan for her to go to Los Angeles during her spring break, where she can stay with her uncle Phil and do research on her mother, who lived in L.A. growing up. Initially against the idea, believing Vada is too young to be traveling by herself, and fearing what might happen to her there, Harry lets Vada take the five-day trip.
On arriving in L.A., Vada confronts a boy her age named Nick, who shows up at the airport instead of Phil. He is the son of Phil's girlfriend Rose, who runs a car repair shop where Phil is now a mechanic. Vada notices that her uncle has trouble with commitment, while he and Rose live together. Although annoyed at first about sacrificing his own spring break, Nick helps Vada with the difficult search of learning more about her mother taking her around the city.
First planning to visit her mother's high school, Vada discovers that it was destroyed in a fire. Nevertheless, she and Nick eventually track down a yearbook and meet several people who knew Maggie, including a police officer, photographer and film director. Vada also meets her favorite poet, Alfred Beidermeyer, who also lives in L.A., but is dismayed when he advises her not to become a writer. Later in the trip, Nick and Vada sneak out to catch some Hollywood attractions, during which time Vada also gets her ears pierced, despite Nick's opposition.
Vada learns some shocking things about her mother, such as being suspended from school for smoking, and having another husband before her father named Jeffrey Pommeroy. Emotionally crushed by the latter, Vada suspects that Jeffrey may actually be her father instead. Realizing he holds the key to more about her mother, she gets help from the police to locate him. Vada goes to see Jeffrey, who instantly remembers Maggie. He provides Vada with valuable information for her essay, including a home movie and the answer behind the date written on the paper bag. Viewing the home movie touches Vada, as she watches her mother. Jeffrey also assures Vada that he is not her father, explaining they divorced before Vada was born, because her mother wanted stability and a family, which her father, Harry, was able to provide.
Meanwhile, Phil tries to prove his love to Rose, after a man owning a fancy car repeatedly stops by the repair shop and tries to sweep her away by continuously flattering her. When Phil finally gets the courage to show how much she means to him, he proposes to her.
As Vada is ready to head home, she and Nick share a goodbye kiss at the airport before she boards the plane. He has left her a gift of earrings in her backpack. When she returns home, she finds out that Shelly just had the baby and heads to the hospital to see her new half-brother. To calm his crying, Vada holds him and sings "Smile", a song she heard her mother singing in the home movie. Vada receives an A+ on her essay, and hopes to share what she learned during her trip with her brother someday.
Release
The film debuted at number 4 at the U.S. box office,[2][3] earning approximately $5 million during its opening weekend.[4] It went on to gross $17,359,799 domestically[4] and $11 million internationally for a worldwide gross of $28 million.[1]
Critical response
My Girl 2 holds a 27% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on fifteen reviews.[5]
Peter Rainer of the Los Angeles Times was critical of the film, writing that its "dubious scenario is made even more so by the treacly approach of director Howard Zieff and screenwriter Janet Kovalcik. Everything in this film is sugared with sermons about the importance of Being Yourself. Vada doesn't experience any twinges of rage at the loss of her mother or any misgivings about her quest. She's preternaturally mature."[6]
Stephen Holden of The New York Times, however, commended it as "appealingly sentimental," adding: "Where the first movie forced Vada to face some jarring realities (a best friend's death, a grandmother's senility) and was heavily salted with mortuary humor, the atmosphere of the sequel is softer and more golden. Among other things, the film is a nostalgic valentine to Los Angeles in palmier days when the city still wore the mystique of a laid-back, post-hippie lotus land."[7]
Roger Ebert awarded the film two out of four stars, noting that it "seems inspired mostly by the opportunity to recycle the title of a successful film. Scrutinizing the popularity of the first film, perhaps the producers thought it depended on gentle sentimentality, in which a likable young girl deals with the loss of loved ones. As an idea for a series, this is fairly dangerous... I think it's time to give Vada a break, before she becomes a necrophile, and starts spending all of her time upstairs like Emily Dickinson, writing bleak little poems."[8] Joe Leydon of Variety deemed the film a "pleasant, painless and, as sequels go, genuinely ambitious," but conceded that it "may not be enough... to broaden its appeal beyond its obvious target audience of preteen and young adolescent girls (and, of course, tag-along parents and boyfriends)."[9]
Home media
Columbia-TriStar Home Entertainment released the film on VHS on June 11, 1996.[10] It was released for the first time on DVD in the United States on December 3, 2002.[11]
Awards
For her performance, Chlumsky won a Young Artist Award for "Best Performance by a Young Actress Starring in a Motion Picture"; Thomson and O'Brien were also nominated for Young Artist Awards for their roles.
Cancelled sequel
For several years Still My Girl was proposed as the third motion picture in the My Girl movie franchise and it was in development at Columbia Pictures. In his 2003 United Kingdom talk show interview with host Michael Parkinson, Dan Aykroyd stated that Columbia had an interest in getting this off the ground and strong interest in Anna Chlumsky returning to her role as Vada.[12] In 2009, both Chlumsky and Aykroyd were still attached to the project but as the time passed it was becoming less and less likely that it would ever go into production.[13] In April 2012, Chlumsky "put to rest" any rumors that such a film was in development.[14]
