My Girl: The Tender Coming-of-Age Film Shot Across Central Florida
It is set in small-town Pennsylvania, but the beloved 1991 film My Girl was filmed across Central Florida, with the towns of Bartow and Sanford playing starring roles.
My Girl follows Vada, an eleven-year-old girl growing up above her family’s funeral home in the summer of 1972, and her best friend Thomas J., played by Macaulay Culkin. Though the story takes place up north, the production set up shop in Florida. The funeral home was a real Victorian house in Bartow, east of Tampa, while the leafy town of Sanford, north of Orlando, stood in for the fictional Pennsylvania setting. Scenes were also shot in Ocoee, Plant City, and around Clermont, making the film a quiet tour of old-Florida main streets and live-oak neighborhoods.
Sweet, funny, and gently heartbreaking, it is a classic of its era, and for Floridians there is the added fun of recognizing local streets standing in for small-town America. A great rainy-afternoon watch.
