But the movie really belongs to Ms. Fonda and Ms. Lohan, actresses whose formidable skill is often underestimated and overshadowed by off-screen notoriety. Ms. Lohan in particular has been subjected recently to the prurient, punitive gaze of an Internet gossip culture that takes special delight in the humiliation of young women with shaky discipline and an appetite for fun.

The joke in “Georgia Rule” is that she is playing a version of her tabloid persona: a needy, reckless young woman whose self-confidence verges on self-destructive. The surprise is that she does it with such poise and intelligence. As written, Rachel is complicated to the point of contradiction: lost child, femme fatale, brainiac and brat squeezed into a series of short dresses. Somehow Ms. Lohan connects these disparate, clashing elements into a single convincing performance.

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