Tell Me I’m Sorry

We’re investigating a supremely entertaining work of garbage this week and, honestly, thank goodness—we needed some laughter around here. CRUEL INTENTIONS (1999) has it all: one of the most despicable romantic heroes in teen film history, ~tension~ between step siblings, a perfect Sarah Michelle Gellar performance, and a Counting Crows needle drop that offends Maggie but reverts Marin into a sentimental tween. We rant, we cackle, w...

MILLER’S GIRL (2024) was panned by critics and didn’t recoup even a fourth of its budget at the box office, so, naturally, we had to talk about it and dare to ask, “Is it really that bad?” The movie is fundamentally about a student being groomed by her teacher, so there’s a lot at stake in terms of how it addresses victimhood, villainy, and power—and our feelings about the outcome are complicated.

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We wade into the world of documentary filmmaking with Sandi Tan’s SHIRKERS (2018), which reflects on Tan’s teenage experience of making a movie with her friends and losing the footage after their teacher steals it. The movie’s “layers of aboutness,” as we writerly types love to say, are plentiful—and get into as much as we can wrap our heads and hearts around: magical realism, punk spirit, youthful determination, and how to live a ...

The day has arrived: Maggie vibes with a movie much more than Marin does. The movie in question? Claire Oakley’s MAKE UP (2019), a surreal and sparse story about a teen girl’s coming-to-desire on the Cornwall coast. Maggie offers a compelling analysis of characterization which invokes the spirits of Dashiell Hammett and RHW Dillard (our beloved former professor), Marin argues that the film is at least horror-adjacent, and we discus...

Did you ever work a soul-crushing service job that sometimes sent you to the bathroom crying? Then we have the episode for you! Andrew Bujalski’s SUPPORT THE GIRLS (2018) is a lovely and loving film which follows a restaurant manager and her all-female staff as they try to make it through the day. We talk about its authentic approach to solidarity, the dynamic ensemble of characters, our own hellish work experiences, and the signif...

We’re tackling religious upbringing this week with Laurel Parmet’s THE STARLING GIRL (2023), a phenomenal film about a teenage girl’s coming-of-age in her Christian fundamentalist community—and we’re having necessary conversations about modesty culture (and the violence it inflicts), predatory relationships, and the work of protecting each other whilst living within systems that thrive precisely by not protecting our livelihoods. 

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It’s finally time to talk about a teen comedy! Marin’s pick this week is Natalie Morales’s PLAN B (2021), which follows two South Dakotan teens as they try to obtain basic reproductive healthcare and endure lots of bullshit along the way. But the movie is also a funny and tender depiction of friendship and growing into yourself. We discuss its smart and empathetic use of humor, why its romantic subplots work, the logistics of its S...

Courtesy of Maggie, we are finally talking about a movie from this decade: Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut, THE LOST DAUGHTER (2021), which is also an adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s novel. We marvel at Olivia Colman’s face acting. We use the word “boundless” a lot. We remember the ways our girlhood-selves terrorized our mothers. We have a lot to say about mothering, art-making, and terrible men who are, nevertheless, alluring...

NANCY DREW (2007) was one of Marin’s favorite movies as a child. Does it hold up? Not really! But Maggie hypothesizes why it makes sense that Young Marin would be smitten with this movie. We also talk about the movie’s depictions of danger, perfection, and violent /clueless/entitled men/boys—all of which leads us to wonder: are we over-thinking this PG movie?

Email your own musings and questions to tellmeimsorry@gmail.com

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Early into this episode, Marin likens watching Baz Luhrmann’s ROMEO + JULIET (1997) for the first time to “seeing God,” so, yeah, we loved this. We discuss the film’s tenderness towards its characters and its refreshing portraits of girlhood and masculinity, particularly via the gaze of the camera itself. While Maggie’s prowess as a high school literature teacher is on full display, Marin connects the film to not one but TWO teen d...

Welcome to the very first episode of Tell Me I’m Sorry! We’re so thankful you’re here as we discuss the underrated 90s GEM of a film, EVER AFTER (1998). Maggie shares her lifelong love of Drew Barrymore (which she proves via a reading from her teenage diary), Marin laments her young self’s lack of appreciation for the film, and we talk about how this re-telling of Cinderella diverges from other versions of the fairytale to give us ...