This film starts off with a young girl, Rena Gruff, (Jena Malone) sitting on a floor and breaks a picture frame in order to cut her wrists. You also proceed to see Rena try to hang herself on a dead tree limb and her efforts fail. Rena has a half-sister named Jay Gruff who looks down on her younger sister and treats her very badly. Rena also has a brother named Jay Gruff, (Brad Renfo) who is a young boy who seems hen pecked with all the woman around him. However, he loves his mother, Madge, (Michelle Forbes) who loves her family and holds the family together. The father is in prison for killing someone and most of the family do not care very much for him at all. Rena has a deep interest in her father and wants the family to visit their father for a prison picnic and no one in the family really want to attend, but Madge changed the families minds and that is when the film takes a very interesting change and there is some dark comedy, but this film is rather depressing.

If you like black comedy you should enjoy "Confessions of an American Girl". Rena (Jena Malone) is the embodiment of that old cartoon where the guy is sitting on the ground with a noose around his neck and a broken rope in his hand; captioned "some people can't do anything right". Rena lives in a mobile home with her somewhat "strange" family, is suicide challenged, is pregnant by a guy who doesn't want to be seen in public with her, and blames it all on the unfair eight year absence of her loving father, who is in prison for murder. Her dim memories of her father are somewhat biased. The highway and its exit ramps are metaphors for her life and her desire to end her life.Alica Witt plays Rena's half-sister. Because Malone and Witt are arguably the most intelligent actresses in Hollywood, you immediately wonder about the wisdom of casting them as moronic trailer trash. But Malone has a special talent for playing this kind of "slack-jawed" character and Witt's standard sarcastic teen character works fine even in this environment. Their scenes together are the best ones in the film; with their reconciliation scene toward the end especially good. Brad Renfro does a good job as Rena brother, O-Lon Jones (remember the waitress in Seinfeld's "Bubble Boy" episode) is excellent in a small role and Clifton Collins Jr. is great as Buddy, the prison trustee, who quickly sizes up the situation and sets the forces of change in motion.While "American Girl" is an above average film, its main scene (the picnic at the prison which actually takes up the majority of the film) pushes it into cinema classic territory. This scene is an example of the way storytelling should be done, and the pacing is absolutely inspired. It is staged perfectly as Buddy orchestrates a sequence of revelations that changes all four visiting family members. Even if you hate the subject of this film it is worth watching just to see how wonderfully they manage this climatic scene. The disastrous visit over, the family leaves the prison with the statement "it went better than it could have".Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

I am extremely proud since Scott Sandoe is my second cousin. I'm really excited for him, and I hope all of you other movie goers watch and enjoy his movie. Even if the director was a psycho with the camera. I am going to see him this summer, and hopefully you guys will be seeing more of me in the next couple of years. If you don't, then i guess you will all have to live your every day lives thinking that some guy on IMDb could have been big, but i didn't believe in him. Guess What, I'll be in LA waiting for that dream to be caught and you won't be able to put me down. Well, I am going to work my butt off for my dreams, and Scott getting his movie out just showed me that my dreams can come true. Catch you later.

Jena Malone never stops amaze me. This movie have everything, including great style. It's about a girl named Rena who wants to kill herself because she thinks that her life isn't worth anything..The movie makes no sense, but oh my goddess it's great. I totally recommend it!