This is a fairly brief film about high school students – and the first part, chatter and plots between the two central characters, seems surreal, in the sense of girls gossiping and plotting, but for many an audience it might have the dramatic effect of eavesdropping, and that one shouldn’t be eavesdropping.
The film takes us into this world of the high schoolers and keeps us there. Fellow students with 2020s sensibilities, identity and assertion, the world of social media, issues of sexuality and identity, quickly identify with the characters and situations. Older audiences (perhaps 25 and over) may do some remembering but may feel that this kind of drama is well in the past.
The two central characters, living together, gay in their attitudes and style, decide to create an image of themselves, from juvenile detention, offering a course in martial arts and other activities for young women to learn to defend themselves. Lots of scenes of training.
Quite a number of girls do come to the course for a variety of reasons, especially in view of sexual harassment and the need for some self-defence. At the high school are the usual jocks, perhaps a bit more than the usual, all tall, handsome, self-confident, self-complacent, and usually appearing in their football year especially Nicholas Galitzine and, as the captain Jock, Jeff. And there are their girlfriends who sometimes feel betrayed, teaming up with the martial arts group. The one who has strong impact is played by Ruby Cruz.
However, as expected, quite a number of emotional tangles, some unmasking, some violence and disappointments – but, this is very much a Girls Own Adventure and, as something of finale, a free-for-all with a visiting football team, and a stage battle between one of the girls and this huge self-satisfied Jock, but some event all triumph for the girls.
Some bloggers have found the film very funny. Others are keen on girl power. And others, one expects that they are older, with responses that are generally hostile.Director, Emma Seligman, worked with actress, Rachel Sennott, on the more universally accessible, Shiva Baby.
Director, Emma Seligman, worked with actress Rachel Sennott on the more universally accessable Shiva Baby.
Reviewed by Fr. Peter Malone, MSC
US 2023, 91 minutes, Colour. Rachel Sennott, Ayo Edebiri, Miles Fowler,
Nocholas Galitzine, Marshall Lynch, Dagmara
Dominczyk, Wayne Pere.
Directed by Emma Seligman.
Worth Pondering... 