Juno Temple lives up to the title in Dirty Girl

(All photos by: David Moir/The Weinstein Company)

Before going into the nuts

and bolts of Abe Sylvia's gay-meets-skank

coming of age road trip story titled Dirty Girl, I would like to call to your attention the wonder of Juno Temple.

Some of you may recognize her. Some of you may not. She is one of those actresses who you would probably refer

to as "THAT actress in THAT movie" -- and by that, I am talking about

her role in Atonement. She plays that one girl who gets raped in the woods

by that one guy and then ends up marrying him. Remember?

In any event, Miss Temple

has also been seen in under-the-radar cinematic fare such as Killer

Joe with Emile Hirsch and a

notable role in Gregg Araki's sexually

charged film Kaboom. She also

landed a coveted spot in the third installment of Christopher Nolan's bat-opus, The Dark Knight Rises -- which is

testimony to her place as a "rising" star in Hollywood.

Director

and writer Abe Sylvia chats with Juno Temple on the set of Dirty Girl

Dirty

Girl is set in 1987 in the

small conservative town of Norman, Oklahoma. Juno plays

Danielle, a rebellious, hot-pants wearing teen who spreads her legs at a

moment's notice -- and she's not afraid to flaunt it. Equipped with porn

star-in-training appeal, all the guys want to hit that (many of them have) and

all the girls scoff at her come-f*ck-me heels. In an attempt to keep her

promiscuity at bay, the principal places her in the remedial class where she is

forced to partner with the naive closet case pariah Clarke (Jeremy Dozier) for the traditional

parenting assignment of treating a sack of flour as a kid.

Jeremy

Dozier as a lowly closet case

The odd couple become fast

friends and when Danielle finds out that her estranged father lives in California, she is

determined to find him and considering Clarke's homophobic dad isn't making

home life easy, he tags along with her.

Thus, a Thelma and Louise style road trip adventure

begins -- complete with a pivotal strip tease scene courtesy of the drifting

exotic dancer Joel (Nicholas D'Agosto).

Dirty

Girl does for Juno Temple

what Pieces of April was supposed to

do for Katie Holmes -- make Juno a

cool and hip actress via a cult movie. For that, it succeeded. First off, she,

like Holmes, is joining the Dark Knight

family. Secondly, she is just more tolerable in general. It helps that Temple is

surrounded by a strong cast: Milla

Jovovich as her desperately passive mother; William H. Macy as her soon-to-be Mormon stepfather (against her

wishes), and, of course Dozier as Clarke.

Fully

feathered and Tab in hand, Milla Jovovich plays Juno Temple's

momma

Dozier and Temple share a decent dollop of chemistry in

this movie. Their characters are a formulaic yin and yang: Clarke makes

Danielle human and Danielle makes Clarke grow a strong set of balls.

Although there is a certain

urge to have an emphasis on Clarke, his coming out story is -- well -- a bit

played out. Although it is gut wrenching to see his homophobic dad treat him

like trash (done with disgusting brilliance by Dwight Yoakam) and it is touching to see his mom (Mary Steenburgen) trying her hardest to

protect him like a baby cub, this has family dynamic has played out many times before in film and TV, and there's not really any unique spin on it here. Which would

explain why Sylvia made that a secondary story to Danielle's stronger ho-bag

exorcism and "Who's my daddy?" quest.

The

"dirty" and dynamic duo of Jeremy Dozier and Juno Temple

Their two journeys

compliment each other and make for a story that falls perfectly in line with Professor

Gaga's "Born This Way" philosophy and the "It Gets Better"

campaign (FYI: the director and cast even did their own It Gets Better video).

Even though Dirty Girl

fondles the concept of a cheesy "message movie," it doesn't fully

grope it. Instead, it makes the message easier to ingest with a

sexpot named Danielle, a cuddly skittish closet case, the aforementioned D’Agosto strip tease,

an awesome '80s wardrobe, a lot of feathered hair, and finally, the most

bitchin' soundtrack in any movie so far this year.

That

said, this movie makes it totally fine to be a dirty girl. In fact, it

encourages it -- just as long as you have an estranged daddy and a gay best

friend to keep you grounded.