Most disheartening is how the female leads aren't given ample space to develop as dynamic characters beyond the most urgent confines of the script's scenarios.

The casting isn’t all together unconvincing: Olsen and Fanning’s collective ability to project intelligence beyond their years works both ways, allowing them to play both precocious youths and youthful adults. But Very Good Girls catches them in between those stages, and the effect isn’t evocative so much as muddled.

You can only imagine how much stronger the movie might have been had it fleshed out subsidiary dramas whose outlines are barely discernible.

Despite a finely wrought lead performance by Dakota Fanning, the drama feels more like the stuff of a mild — and dated — YA novel than an involving exploration of female experience.

The only real reason to see it is for a luminous leading turn from Dakota Fanning as Brooklyn teen Lilly.