My Girl

Vada Sultenfuss is an 11-year-old girl living in Madison, Pennsylvania in the summer of 1972. Her widowed father, Harry Sultenfuss, operates the town's funeral parlor, which is also their home. Her upbringing leads her to suffer from hypochondria and develop an obsession with death, which her father fails to understand. Also living with them are "Gramoo", Vada's paternal grandmother, whose recent dementia accentuates Vada's worries, and Harry's older brother and Vada's paternal uncle Phil. Vada hangs out with Thomas J. Sennett, an unpopular boy her age who is allergic to "everything". Other girls tease them, thinking they are more than just friends. Thomas J. often accompanies Vada when she visits the doctor, who assures her that she is not sick. During the summer, Vada befriends Shelly DeVoto, the new makeup artist at the funeral parlor, who provides her with guidance. Vada has a crush on Mr. Bixler, her fifth-grade teacher, and hears about an adult poetry writing class he is teaching. Wondering how to pay for the class, she takes money from a cookie jar in Shelly's camper. During her first class, when suggested to write about what is in her soul, Vada fears that she killed her mother, who died two days after childbirth. When Harry and Shelly start dating, Vada's attitude towards Shelly changes. One night, she follows them to a bingo game and brings Thomas J. along to disrupt it. On the Fourth of July, when Shelly's ex-husband Danny shows up, Vada hopes that Shelly will take him back, to no avail. Following the holiday, Vada and Thomas J. knock down a beehive in the woods. Vada loses her mood ring in the process, and while they look for it, the bees swarm and force them to run away. Harry invites Vada and Shelly to a carnival; she becomes distressed when he and Shelly announce their engagement there, so she proposes bumper cars so she can release her frustration by ramming her repeatedly. Later, it leads her to contemplate running away. Later, Vada screams when she sees that she is bleeding, but Shelly explains that she is experiencing her first period. As Vada accepts that this happens only to girls, she angrily rebuffs Thomas J. when he comes to visit. A couple of days later, the friends sit under a willow tree, wondering what a first kiss feels like, so they share one. After Vada heads home, Thomas J. returns to the woods to search for her mood ring. Unaware that the beehive they knocked down is still active, he is killed by the bees due to his allergy. Harry delivers the tragic news to Vada, who stays in her bedroom for a full day. Shelly suggests that he console Vada, but he brushes her off. Shelly urges him to realize the significance of his daughter's pain. When Vada leaves her bedroom and sees Thomas J.'s body in his casket, she runs away out of grief to Mr. Bixler's house, wanting to stay with him, but flees after discovering that he is engaged. Vada grieves by the willow tree where she and Thomas J. hung out. When she returns home, everyone is relieved, including Shelly, whom Vada begins to accept as her future stepmother. Her grief also mends the rift between her and her father, who assures Vada that her mother's death was not her fault. Toward the end of summer, Vada and her father comfort Mrs. Sennett, who still struggles with her son's death. She returns Vada's mood ring, which Thomas J. had found. On the last day of her writing class, Vada reads a poem in memory of her best friend.

Plot from My Girl (film)CC BY-SA 4.0