Molly Gunn From "Uptown Girls": My Ultimate "Comfort Character"
"I don't see any grown-ups around here" - Ray Schleine
This posts contains major spoilers for the film Uptown Girls (2003). If you haven’t seen it, watch it first - believe me, it’s worth it, then come back. Or just read this, and get a general gist of the film.
I watched Uptown Girls for the first time when I was 10 years old. I was struck even back then by how it moved me. My surprise at it’s “Rotten” rating courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes did not defer me from claiming its mastery and its rightful place in my personal film hall of fame. In fact, it cemented my disdain for the Rotten Tomatoes system as a whole. After all, they had clearly not had the capicity to understand the genius of this film, which was undeniable to me.
At age 10, I was a precocious child who regularly got migraine headaches and much preferred structure and certainty than whatever my peers deemed fun. Basically, I was Ray, the little girl that Brittany Murphy’s character, Molly Gunn, nannies in the film. I loved Ray, her attitude, her insecurities, her complex personality that she often tried to push down in favour of being perceived the unbothered and mature child of eight going on twenty eight.
This essay, however, isn’t about Ray. It isn’t about my first time, or even fifth time, watching this film. It’s about me, at 25, the way this movie has followed me through every stage of my life, and how Molly Gunn brings to the surface many of my own complex feelings and experiences of “adulthood”.
Molly Gunn is a twenty two year old who has grown up in privilege. The daughter of a famous rock star, she lives in a penthouse apartment where she regularly parties and spends mornings in bed. She lives alone in her childhood home, both her parents having died in a plane crash at age 7, with her pet, a pig (yes, pig!) from Thailand for company. At her 22nd birthday party, she listens a “rock and roll sex god” play a few songs at the club where her party is being held. She immediately falls for him hard, and waits no time to make himself known to him. There is the usual cat and mouse chase typical of “coming of age” films, but luckily, the romance, and indeed the “boy-meets-girl” subplot is secondary to a “girl-meets-girl” main event.
Much like the film itself, this essay is not about the romance between Molly and this rock and roller. It is about Molly herself, and the other connection she makes that night at the party.
While in the bathroom, she is confronted by an eight year old girl with her own personal soap, asking her; “Why do you think anyone would care?” after she examines her ‘forehead wrinkle’ in the mirror. Ray is spoiled, disrespectful, and clearly disdainful of Molly. When Molly’s parent’s "guy” runs off with her money, and Molly is swiftly evicted from her apartment with no employment history or funds, she is offered a job by her record producer friend Huey.
Much to both of their chagrins, Molly’s new job is as Ray’s nanny. Ray is dismayed, and Molly is clearly out of her element. First of all, Molly lives unconventionally, and while she keeps Ray safe, she doesn’t have many words of wisdom for her. In fact, Ray frequently comments on Molly’s immaturity and lack of reliability, chastising her to “act [her] age, not [her] shoe size”.
Molly is carefree, clueless, and clumsy. She is forgetful, sometimes argumentative, and outspoken. Much like Ray, though, she hides behind this persona - her confusion and loss can be seen several times throughout the film. She is truly struggling to stay afloat, learning as she goes, and in the process, forming an unmistakable bond with this little girl. Ray, meanwhile, is grappling with the loss of her father, in a coma after a massive stroke, and her absent manager mother, who doesn’t know much about her and leaves her in the care of Molly and other house staff.
When Ray loses her father to his coma, she is angry and lost, taking her anger out on the closest person to her - Molly. They both share in the unmistakeable pain of losing a parent much too young. The movie culminates in a playful and carefree (two things that Ray has had trouble being throughout the film) dance performance by Ray, her song choice being “Molly Smiles”, the song written for Molly by her father. It is sung by the “rock and roll sex god” himself, and accompanied by her dance class, who tenderly clutch Molly’s fathers collection of guitars.
So, why does Molly Gunn strike such a chord in me, no pun intended? It’s because, that with all of her facets, Molly remains one thing - herself. She isn’t apologetic of her inexperience in the “real world”. She is chronically overwhelmed, but she radiates so much joy for life itself. Even the “suicide” scene in the film, where Molly recklessly jumps from a bridge, ends somewhat comedically. Molly, by her own admission, is scared. She is uncertain of her future, she makes mistakes, she couch-surfs. She is 22, and in many ways she knows the world as the lost seven year old that she was years ago. Molly is not depicted as being disabled in the film. However, I see many parallels between myself struggling to navigate a world that did not have me in mind - someone who didn’t hit the traditional milestones of adolescent and young adult life in the same way and with the same time frames. Molly Gunn ends this story on an uncertain, yet hopeful note. The loose ends are not tied up, but instead are left dangling haphazardly in limbo. Molly Gunn is seen having an interview for a Fashion and Design post-secondary program, but she leaves the interview so suddenly and clumsily that the audience is left to wonder whether she will get the callback. She doesn’t end married, or even in a relationship with the on-again, off-again man that she lusted over. Instead, she is learning to prioritize herself, no matter how messy, uncertain, or chaotic she may turn out to be.
Throughout life, Uptown Girls has stayed at the top of lists for films to watch on a bad day. It cemented both Brittany Murphy and Dakota Fanning as actresses that I would watch any movie for. Whenever I meet a new person and feel they are going to be an important person in my life, I ask them to watch the film with me, and then watch out of the corner of my eye to see how they are reacting to its parts.
In fact, when Brittany Murphy passed away in 2009, I was left with an ache that I had not felt for any other celebrity death before or since. I know I hadn’t known her, and that Molly Gunn was a character, and not her. But Brittany had brought Molly Gunn to life, and watching Molly Gunn’s journey throughout the roughly hour and forty minutes that she graced my various screens throughout the periods of my life never failed to make me feel, at least for a little bit, like it was okay to be “behind”. It was okay to be “lost”. It was okay to not know how to adult. You could still be a captivating, joyful, accomplished person. You could do things and be things you never saw yourself doing or being. You could even be confused and happy at the same time.
I must have watched Uptown Girls more than twenty times at this point. I know every word, can sing every song on its soundtrack, and regularly find myself wondering - WWMD (What Would Molly Do)? I’m older now than Molly was in the film, yet I have never related to her more. Seeing a film explore the concept of ‘not adulting’ so complexly was comforting, and continues to buoy me forward in the days, weeks, months - let’s face it, years - where I’m not “measuring up” to the arbitrary, yet very visible standards that surround so many of us.
And let’s face it, Dakota Fanning’s line; “QUIET? This place is SO LOUD, it is giving me a migraine” is still extremely relevant to me.
