Dirty Girl isn't. Sorry, but it's just faux grime, a thin layer of bad behaviour that wipes clean with a two-ply tissue to reveal the real movie beneath - all shiny sentimentality.
- Rick Groen, Globe and Mail, October 21, 2011
Dirty Girl broadcasts its intent to be edgy and subversive - poking fun throughout at small-town, conservative attitudes toward sex and morality - without ever achieving subversion.
- Bruce Demara, Toronto Star, October 20, 2011
If your sensibility is pure trashy camp, don't expect anyone not to laugh when you try to be earnest.
- Kyle Smith, New York Post, October 07, 2011
One can appreciate an artistic effort without actually endorsing it, which may be the most generous approach to Abe Sylvia's frustratingly uneven debut.
- Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News, October 07, 2011
Undoubtedly this movie means something to its director and screenwriter - a former dancer making his feature-film debut. So why didn't he put more care into the period?
- Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger, October 07, 2011
[Sylvia's] attempts at situational humor on the road - including a stripping scene for Dozier as coming-out metaphor - fall embarrassingly flat.
- Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times, October 07, 2011
Social satire, heartbreaking family drama and a lot of toe-tapping 1980s music attempt to exist in the same space. Watching this movie is like eating a hot fudge sundae and lasagna in alternating bites.
- Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle, October 07, 2011
It's probably appropriate that a film about adolescent identity crises has trouble figuring out what it wants to be.
- Ian Buckwalter, NPR, October 06, 2011
A well-meaning, misbegotten frenzy of confused impulses.
- A.O. Scott, New York Times, October 06, 2011
The heavy eye shadow, cheesy clothes and stiffly flipped-out hair feel almost too mocking ... rather than serving as stylistic choices that make the characters feel like real people.
- Christy Lemire, Associated Press, October 06, 2011
Dirty Girl is a bad movie with no insights that is broadly drawn and genuinely plagued by filthy dialogue. You don't laugh. You just wince, and wonder how the whole thing ever got financed.
- Rex Reed, New York Observer, October 05, 2011
What begins as a politically incorrect, Mean Girls-esque satire constantly shifts tone and focus as director Abe Sylvia pursues a style as jumbled as his narrative.
- Peter Debruge, Variety, October 05, 2011
A sweet 'n' sassy period comedy with a Juno sensibility and the soul of a Little Miss Sunshine.
- Michael Rechtshaffen, Hollywood Reporter, October 05, 2011
Dirty Girl isn't nearly as messy or real or raw as it needs to be -- mostly it's just grubby with shopworn familiarity and glammed up with too many pop songs.
- James Rocchi, MSN Movies, October 05, 2011
A feeble teenage-outcast movie set in 1987, Dirty Girl exists primarily as a vehicle for first-time writer-director Abe Sylvia's favorite Reagan-era jams.
- Melissa Anderson, Village Voice, October 04, 2011
The movie is all over the place, searching for an identity that proves almost entirely elusive.
- John Hartl, Seattle Times, October 20, 2011
Temple does turn what's essentially a magical-hussy role into something more grounded and human. The rest of the cast isn't quite so lucky...
- Alison Willmore, Time Out New York, October 05, 2011
Writer-director Abe Sylvia reflects mid-'80s Middle America through a fisheye indie lens, and films don't get much uglier than this.
- Scott Tobias, AV Club, October 06, 2011
For a movie hellbent on marketing itself as the seedy tale of a small-town tramp, Dirty Girl sure has an odd way of making good on its promise.
- R. Kurt Osenlund, Slant Magazine, October 03, 2011
But even if Dirty Girl is formulaic, it's constantly moving forward, and not just in the geographical sense.
- Alonso Duralde, The Wrap, October 06, 2011
