Uptown Girls

Every story has an end but in life every ending is just a beginning.

I’ve gotten in the habit of writing about a more light-hearted movie the week after doing a deep dive into something more serious. Unfortunately, I hadn’t seen Uptown Girls in years, so I completely forgot that it isn’t that light-hearted and is actually deeply sad and emotional. I thought of this film because it showed up when I was searching through movies on Max and because Dakota Fanning (Lorraine “Ray”) was recently at The Golden Globes, nominated for her role in Ripley.

Uptown Girls deals with a lot of death and loss, and I remember the death of Brittany Murphy (Molly) in 2009 being devastating. She was in so many of my favorite movies growing up, and I believe if she was still here, she would have gone on to do incredible things. Uptown Girls didn’t get the praise it deserved upon release, and Murphy never got the appreciation she was worthy of. I hope this week’s newsletter can honor her.

“I Don’t See Any Grown Ups Around Here”

Uptown Girls. 2003. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios.

Molly may initially seem like the same kind of rich, spoiled girl that we’ve seen in so many 90s and 2000s teen movies. Because she has no responsibilities, she’s incapable of acting like an adult. Her careless and reckless behavior frustrates the people around her and likely would have ended in her demise if her circumstances hadn’t drastically changed. However, what I love about Uptown Girls is the film actually dives into why Molly is this way. Her father was a famous musician, and when she was a child, he and her mother died in a plane crash. Growing up without parents often leads people to grow up too fast, so when they reach adulthood, they start reverting back to childlike behavior to make up for lost time. Also, she grew up without any kind of authority or grounding presence, which is a recipe for disaster.

“Other people always let you down. Why don’t you just forget about them and do something for yourself,”-Ray, Uptown Girls.

We see a similar childhood dynamic in Ray when Molly starts nannying her after losing all her money. Ray is very wealthy, and unsurprisingly, her mother doesn’t spend much time with her. Her father is also absent after going into a stroke-induced coma. Ray has certainly grown up too fast, taking on the adult behaviors one would expect from Molly in order to cope with her circumstances. She’s uptight, a hypochondriac, and has a very dry sense of humor that she typically uses to mock her nanny. She’s exactly who Molly needs in her life, and Molly is exactly who she needs. Molly lives in chaos and needs someone to create structure and teach her how to be an adult, while Ray needs someone to teach her how to lighten up and be a kid.

There’s a scene halfway through Uptown Girls when Ray invites Molly to have a tea party with her. It’s one of the scenes where we can really see the maturity differences between the two. Molly is upset over Neil, the musician she’s on and off with throughout the film, when Ray starts giving her life advice. It’s silly because Ray is only a child and doesn’t have the life experience to advise a grown-up on what to do. However, because she’s so mature, she believes she has the authority. We also know that she spends a lot of time alone because her parents are absent, so she has a much more advanced perspective than most kids her age. What stands out the most in this scene is when, after advising Molly to get a hobby outside of shopping, Molly suggests she might not be good at anything. Ray responds, "Every grown-up is good at something. Oh my bad, I don't see any grown-ups around here."

This is an obvious jab at Molly's immaturity, which Ray quickly picks up on. However, as the film progresses, Molly starts to really care for Ray. In caring for Ray, Molly starts to prioritize her, so when she misses Ray's ballet recital and learns her mother didn't even care to go, she makes it up to her on her day off. She has emotional and vulnerable conversations with Ray, too, like she's never had with anyone else in her life. She stands up for Ray against her mother, calling her out for being absent from her life and not even really knowing her own daughter. Later, when Neil comes back around, Molly isn't so reciprocative of his feelings; instead, she calls out his selfishness before walking away.

This was the take-home for me. Molly didn't want Neil when he was lying around her apartment, creating havoc. But as soon as he chose to leave her, she wanted him again. She then spent a good portion of the film chasing him. It's the epitome of immaturity: consciously participating in toxic situations and patterns that cause harm to both parties involved. Knowing when to walk away and cut destructive people out of your life is a sign of maturity and emotional intelligence. When Ray's father passes away, Molly attends the memorial ceremony and runs into a few people in the fashion industry who love the jacket she made that Neil wore in his music video. They start asking her if she's able to make other designs for them, which inspires her to apply to FIT.

Becoming Ray's nanny and getting a job for the first time in her life was only Molly's first step. By the end of the film, she's set on a path where she will have to build a real career. She has the potential for real success and to build her own wealth, a true test of how much she's matured. Despite mocking Molly throughout the film for her behavior, Ray notices the change in her, too. When Molly visits Ray in her bedroom, she tells her they'll still be friends even if Molly isn't her nanny anymore. Ray points out that grown-ups don't often stay friends with kids. Molly repeats Ray's earlier dialogue, "I don't see any grown-ups around here," but this time, Ray responds, "I do." The dynamic has shifted; Molly has officially grown up, and Ray seems to be embracing her age instead of forcing herself to be an adult.

The Teacups At Coney Island

Uptown Girls. 2003. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios.

The teacup ride at Coney Island is very symbolic in Uptown Girls because it is tied to loss, especially the loss of childhood. When Molly misses Ray's ballet recital and makes it up to her the following day, she is hellbent on taking her to Coney Island to ride the tea cups. She's let down when she finds out the ride is closed for the season. We don't know why she's so determined to go on the teacups with Ray until they get back to Ray's apartment. Coney Island is where Molly ran away to when her parents died. She got on the teacup ride and spun around and around, admitting she still feels like she's on the ride.

The chaos in Molly's life is all tied to the loss of her parents, and her life has been spinning around ever since. She tells Ray she took her there because she knows Ray is as scared as she is, and she thought the teacup ride might help. I also believe this was a way for them to both feel young. Ray admits she's never been to Disneyland or any amusement park, another emblem of her lack of a childhood. The teacup ride was a way for her to feel like a kid for the first time, and it was a way for Molly to connect with childhood at the loneliest point in her life.

In the same scene where Molly confesses, Ray tells Molly that being mad at people makes her feel less "sucky" when bad things happen. When her father passes away, her mother tells Molly that Ray is missing. Molly knows immediately that she can find her on the teacup ride. After they spin around in the ride together, they both get out, and Ray starts punching Molly. She's angry because earlier in the film, Molly led Ray to believe that if she spoke to her father while he was in a coma, he might get better. However, halfway through punching her, she hugs her and breaks down crying.

The scene connects back to what Ray told Molly earlier. Ray doesn't like to feel uncomfortable emotions like sadness, so she chooses to feel angry instead. When she hit Molly, she was hiding her sadness behind misdirected anger. The truth is underneath anger is always just deep hurt that desperately wants to be felt. Molly never meant to give Ray false hope but to encourage her to spend time with her father while he was still alive. What lessons the pain of losing him is that she has Molly in her life, and Molly understands what loss feels like.

“When you’re mad, you don’t miss people. And if you stay mad, it’s like you never knew them at all. That way, you don’t have to feel sucky about it”-Ray, Uptown Girls.

Loss really is all Molly has experienced before meeting Ray. She lost her parents, she loses all her father's money, she loses her apartment, and she loses Neil. The later losses might hurt, but they only deepened the abandonment wound already formed from her parents' deaths. She also struggles to let things go, including the material items she has to sell to make money. However, Ray knows loss, too, even before her dad passed away. Her mother was physically there but not emotionally, causing Ray to lack the affection every child needs to grow into a healthy adult. Molly saw so much of herself in Ray, even if they seemed like complete opposites.

Last year Dakota Fanning admitted she still misses her former costar. How could she not? Despite what critics had to say, Uptown Girls spoke to a generation through Fanning and Murphy's bond that shined through in their characters. In the Uptown Girls universe, I like to believe that despite finally being a grown-up, Molly did stay friends with Ray. I hope they continue to guide each other through life, with both of them learning maturity but always staying connected to their inner child.