According to Nathan Rabin @ the Onion’s AV Club, the manic pixie dream girl is a movie character that:
“…exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.”
The MPDG character is, in the best cases, a strong, but flawed, female; just like actual women. In the worst cases, though, they become a trope, a gimmick. Not a real, full-fledged person, but a collection of plot devices and snappy one-liners.
Artistic, sensitive boys tend to fall madly in love with them – and I don’t just mean artistic, sensitive boy movie characters. The ones in the audience do, too – not to mention the writers and directors who help put them on the screen.
Like William Miller once said of, and to, his manic pixie dream girl, “Sometimes I think I live in a different world.” It’s great, and cathartic, though, to visit her world once in a while. You’re never the same afterward.
Reading another amazing post from Grace, I think I see a flip side to the story. Grace was Christopher’s manic pixie dream girl, only she is a real, feeling, complex human being.
And she’s an amazing writer.