A well iced cake can look quite pretty, but if it’s undercooked it won’t taste very good. Naomi Foner’s directorial debut Very Good Girls has some delicious icing, including excellent performances from Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen, and plenty of trimming in the way of Demi Moore, Richard Dreyfus, Peter Sarsgaard, Clark Gregg, and Boyd Holbrook, but its under-developed plot and overly sentimental premise leave it ooey and gooey in the middle with not even a sugar rush to make up for its failings.

First premiering last year at Sundance, Very Good Girls is marketing itself as a virginity pact movie, but that’s not quite accurate. Other than a brief conversation held between best friends Gerry (Elizabeth Olsen) and Lilly (Dakota Fanning) at the beginning of the movie, where they discuss first Lilly catching her father cheating on her mother and then the strange notion of parents having sex in general before moving on to their own unappreciated virginity, there is no real plot to become de-virginized. The film is a friendship story, focusing on the strange purgatory that is the summer between high school and college. As if dealing with their various family issues, creepy bosses, and annoying siblings aren’t enough to keep them occupied the girls’ friendship is tested most when they meet David (Boyd Holbrook), a sexy ice-cream vendor at the beach who likes taking pictures. They both take an interest in him, but Gerry, being the more vocal of the two, marks her territory by constantly discussing her interest in him and by pseudo-stalking where he works. Of course, as these things are apt to go, David was much more interested in the darker, quieter, Lilly and seeks her out.

The unfortunate part of love-triangle stories is ensuring that each thread of the entangled relationships is given enough depth. Very Good Girls has an obvious loose thread. David’s pursuit of Lilly and the ease in which she slips into a secret relationship with him is mostly non-sensical. Considering at her day job she has a boss (Peter Sarsgaard) who is consistently hitting on her, you’d think she’d execute a bit more caution when another almost-stranger exhibits what so obviously seem to be shallow motivations for pursuing her. But the film doesn’t claim to be the great love story of the century, so it’s slightly excusable. Tensions build as expected as the repercussions of forbidden romance ensue.

Elizabeth Olsen makes the most of her artistic-minded, self-centered character, but seems a bit too much like an archetype: girls who can attract men, but not obtain them. Equally archetypical is Dakota Fanning’s Lilly, who does her best to get away with wide-eyed staring equaling out to implied depth and understanding, when really she’s just a shy, white-collared girl with some pent-up daddy issues. And winning Most Abused Stereotype is artist David with his sullen ways, who speaks of some day visiting Paris and even reads Sylvia Plath to Lilly before first kissing her.

The film wastes talent in abundance. Even the film’s music, done by Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis, seems to be trying too hard as we hear her familiar voice in almost every scene. There are some questionable wardrobe choices as well, as though the costumer didn’t think we’d understand the essence of the characters with simple words and actions, they needed to be outlandish in their outfits. If they’d been thrown into a film set in the 60s, maybe the completely illogical actions of the characters would make more sense. Unlikely and ill-advised romance, childish secrets and silly pining away for a boy without much to offer — it’s all just so incredibly un-modern.

The locations and lighting of the film do give off a definite summery vibe, and younger female audiences are likely to be drawn to the film’s stars and suggested plot, but like I said, no matter how you cut it, this cake ain’t cooked.

The film is now available on VOD on iTunes and Google Play.

The release of Margin Call was done at a perfect time, a time where Occupy Wall Street is currently going on in New York protesting the top 1% of the wealthy. This film is about that 1%. Written and directed by first-time filmmaker J.C. Chandor, the film depicts the events that led up to the Financial Crisis of 2008 from an unnamed investment bank.

Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey) has been with this financial investment firm for 34 years. He is the head boss of the risk assessment team. He is going through a rough time, his dog is close to dying and the majority of the risk assessment team is being laid off today. To complicate things exponentially, a discovery is soon made that could end the company.

Right before Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci) was laid off, he was on to something pretty important. The senior risk analyst voices this concern to the job consultants but they did not seem to care. He even brought it up when speaking to his boss as he was packing up his personal belongings of his desk but it did not seem important to his boss either. Finally, as he is about the leave the building for the last time, he hands a USB drive off to one of his co-workers named Peter (Zachary Quinto) and says “Take a look at it, be careful”.

After Peter crunches the numbers from Eric’s file he discovers that Eric was really on to something huge. He frantically alerts his co-workers of his findings. Each person he tells reacts the same way, completely shocked. The news climbs up the ranks and eventually Sam is notified.

Sam calls for all the senior partners of the company for an emergency meeting to discuss these findings. The CEO John Tuld (Jeremy Irons) is brought in by helicopter. Attempting to explain the situation to him is difficult because he does not understand all of the business side of the corporation, he only manages it. Once they speak in plain terms he quickly understands the severity of the problem.

There was a lot of finance jargon thrown around throughout Margin call, enough to where I think it would confuse the average person. I myself was at a loss when terms like MBS market and ABX index were being talked about. However, if you are fairly educated in Economics than you would probably appreciate the fact they did not dumb down the script.

My favorite scene in the film is when Eric speaks about a bridge he once built. The bridge connected a border town in Ohio to one in West Virginia over the Ohio River. They way he mathematically breaks down all the numbers to show how much time and money that bridge saved – all in all he figures he saved 559,020 days by building that bridge based on time/money savings.

Margin Call will walk away with at least one award from the 2012 Independent Spirit awards, as one category has already been decided at the same time the nominations were announced. They will be presented with the Robert Altman award which is given to the director, casting director and its ensemble cast. The film is also nominated for Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay for the 2012 awards.

Through the course of the film, you find out that the personal finances of the bankers themselves tend not to be very good. All of them are making at least six figures, yet every one of them spent nearly all of it. Greed and ignorance has transcended from the work environment to their personal lives. All of the characters are shocked when they hear how much the other person makes, but equally as shocking is how little they have left of it.

It was not just that Margin Call was a little slow moving, it is that the film feels like it is on the same level the entire time. Aside from the very beginning, there was no real excitement to the film, I never felt that there was a climax to the story. That being said, it is a very accurate depiction of the events leading up to the financial crisis, as well as the lives of the people that actually work for investment banks.