Today I
wish to talk about My Girl 2, mostly
because when I was looking for my Sense
and Sensibility DVD last week I came across My Girl and was hit with all the Vada Sultenfuss feels. I loved
that film, so hard, even though it broke my tiny little girl heart.
I never saw
the second film. I had the book though, because, well, bookworm and I read it so many times.
Everyone
knows My Girl, right? Vada Sultenfuss is an undertaker’s daughter, her Mum died
and her Dad is seeing someone new, she’s a total hypochondriac (growing up in a
funeral home would do that to a kid), has a crush on her teacher and is
terrified she killed her mother (who actually died in childbirth). She's a really cool kid, our Vada. I loved her, I wanted to be her friend.
Vada’s
best friends with this cute kid with glasses called Thomas J and it’s the
cutest friendship EVER IN THE WORLD. And then, he dies and it’s the worst.
Seriously, so much sad.
You say that line to anyone my age and I can pretty much bet you: instant teary eyes. SO MUCH SAD.
Anyway, My
Girl 2 picks up the story 2 years later: Vada’s stepmum is preggers, and Vada’s
still really missing Thomas J, and, she’s growing up. She always wanted to be a
writer more than anything but now she kind of just wants to be kissed. She heads off to visit her Uncle Phil in LA (we meet him in My Girl) and find out more about her
Mum. Which would be the best ever except her tour guide is Uncle Phil’s stepson
Nick, and he’s not the best, at all…..
Oh god,
doesn’t it just have pre-teen perfection written all over it??
I just, I
loved it. I wanted to be Vada, I did. & I remember thinking the whole
getting on a plane by yourself and flying all the way to LA sounded like the
coolest thing. I thought the whole book, all of it, just sounded so cool and so
many million miles away from my own life where there were no super cool dead
relatives and no cute boys to hatelove and no scorching hot summers. Plus there’s
the fact that I watched my video of My
Girl so many times that I felt like I knew Vada, I felt like she was my
friend and God, it wasn’t very often that I got to find out what happened to my
fave characters after the book had finished or the end credits rolled and
suddenly here it was: this look at Vada’s life, post Thomas J. I loved it, I
ate it up and I wanted more. I kept
wishing and hoping for a My Girl 3 and
making up stories in my head of what might have happened. It makes me wonder
actually, whether the part of me that’s always had those fangirl tendencies
began with My Girl.
