Paul (Paul Schneider), whose apparent malevolent behavior with numerous past girlfriends awkwardly remains offscreen, is finally going to change when he falls in love with Noel (Zooey Deschanel), sister of his best friend, Tip (Shea Whigham).  Writer-director David Gordon Green, who made a strong debut with GEORGE WASHINGTON, continues to show his Terence Malick influence here (with Tip owing something to Martin Sheen’s Kit from BADLANDS).  REAL GIRLS doesn’t work nearly as well as GEORGE WASHINGTON.  Most every scene is a mixture of strengths and weaknesses – usually unexpectedly quaint details amid all the forced lyricism, which often winds up very pretentious (the couple in a weird pose in the middle of a bowling lane).  The story is a flat out soap opera presented in a style that aspires to Tarkovsky-like profundity, but the melodramatic content and the hokey dialogue that sounds derived from cheap romance novels just resist the poetic gloss.  It doesn’t help that the non-professional cast members can’t act a lick next to pros like Deschanel and Patricia Clarkson.  Schneider, who co-wrote, shows little chemistry with Deschanel, and just has this physically unappealing presence reminiscent of a retarded alligator.   And must Danny McBride, playing the intentionally annoying Bust-Ass, be that annoying?