My Girl!

My all time favorite movie, ‘My Girl’ is based on a young girl, Vada  (Anna Chlumsky) who lives with her widowed father in a funeral home.  Her father, a mortician (DanAykroyd), hires a new cosmetician (Jamie Lee Curtis) and a love story develops.  This movie follows the life of Vada and deals with the various relationships she’s around, including the one with her best friend, Thomas J. (Macaulay Culkin).

This scene is what we call a medium shot (MS).  If you've seen the movie you'd know what is happening, I don't want to explain this scene without telling too much so I'll just explain why the MS is important here.  In this scene we see the scenery of the lake behind them and we see how comfortable they are with their friendship.

This shot is a close up (CU).  This shot was important to the film because since Vada's father is a mortician, she is pretty much obsessed with death.  At this point in the movie, Vada's father had just received a new body to arrange a funeral for.  Once she finds out how the newest body dies, Vada usually rushes to the doctor claiming she has the same illness.  This CU shows Vada's seriousness of believing she has the illness mentioned in the film.

This scene is one of the closest I could find for a long shot (LS).  I could think of a better example of when Vada is riding her bike away at the ending, but after thinking about LS's and this shot, I see that Vada in the background foreshadows what is to happen as the film progresses.  We see Vada is isolated to herself behind Thomas J.