Girl In Progress

Girl In Progress, due out in time for Mother's Day 2012  is a story of a dysfunctional relationship between a mother and a daughter. A single mom,  Grace (Eva Mendes) tries to balance work in a nearby restaurant, bills, and her affair with a married doctor (Matthew Modine). Her teenaged daughter, Ansiedad ( Cierra Ramirez), has tired of the constant flow of men, moves, and dead-end jobs in her mom's life and decides to take matters into her own hands. Inspired by the coming-of-age stories she is reading in school, she enlists her best friend (Raini Rodriguez) to help her to devise a series of steps she needs to experience so she will be ready for an early adulthood, and a better life than she now has. 

 I was given an opportunity to see an advance copy of the film recently, and I admit to a few mixed feelings. During the first few minutes, I admit I had doubts, but decided to proceed with the viewing and not just make a snap judgement. Both mother and daughter had too much responsibility to handle and a lack of maturity that caused poor choices. Grace was kicked out of the house when she became pregnant at 17, and was stuck in jobs beneath her capabilities, and felt trapped. She dreamed of better things, but made poor choices. Ansiedad felt like she was having to take on an adult role, so her plan to speed things up and escape had both shades of comedy and pathos. This is not a film for younger children and I was glad to see that it had a rating of PG-13. There are scenes of bullying, drinking, sexual references, and, of course, the mom's affair with a married man. However, there is no bad language or graphic nudity. I have teenaged grandkids and would not object to them seeing this film. There were consequences to decisions made, and lessons were learned from mistakes. I felt a sense of hope for the future of these characters as the film came to a close.

Check out more about this film on Imdb and Facebook:
Girl In Progress on IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1817676/
Girl In Progress on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GIRLINPROGRESSmovie

Thanks to Buzzplant for giving me to see this film and do a review. I was not required to give a favorable review and all opinions are my own.