My Review of the Movie 'Girl'

If there is any movie that I can kind of compare this movie to, I would have to say it follows a similar path to the movie 127 Hours. You know what's going to happen, and they go on in circles about it, and then when it actually happens, you feel nauseated anyway. I had this same sort of feel in the movie Girl.

So this movie is about a transgendered girl, named Lara. She's a ballerina, in some high art school. She has a little brother, and a single father taking care of them. For the most part she seems like a girl in the movie, but it's apparent that she's transgender. It's interesting too, because it's out in the open, and pretty much everyone in the school, her family, and her friends accept her as transgender. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong at all.

The film then dives a little deeper. She's anxious to have her sex reassignment surgery, but there's a few things that she does in her everyday life that may complicate the surgery. All she has to do is follow what the doctor says, and she's fine. What the film does well is explain why she doesn't follow the doctor's orders, and has the audience sympathize with her.

I would say that much like 127 Hours, it dives into Lara's psyche, and her relationship with her family and friends. Let's not forget the fact that she's an adolescent, going through, but not really going through changes. It's said that she's gone through hormone blockers, and taking estrogen, or something.

Diving into her psychological well being is interesting. Her father even tells her, she's living a good life. Everyone accepts her for who she is, she's loved, there's no problem with money, she's going to a very good art school, doing what she wants to do (ballet), and they're even going through with the sex reassignment surgery. Despite all of the positives Lara still isn't satisfied. She really wants to feel like a girl. So badly that she's willing to suffer from pain and starvation.

So I put the pieces together in my head while I was watching this. Adolescent kids are already body conscious. Her case is even worse, because she's got male body parts, so she doesn't fit in with the other females. At that age when fitting in is what you're programmed to do, it can be incredibly tough. Then on top of that, she loves ballet. Ballet is physically demanding. You can see that she is willing to die for the dance, by starving herself to look good, and her feet bleed after every practice. These are just a recipe for disaster, and that's what we eventually get with Lara. A ticking time bomb waiting to happen.

Some would argue that some of the scenes are gratuitous. I can't totally argue against it, but I understand why they made certain scenes the way that they did. It can get pretty brutal to watch, and at some parts I wanted to shut off the video.

Oh, I also forgot to mention, that this movie is a mix of French, German and English. They were switching languages like a water tap. It was pretty cool how they would just switch languages so fast like they did.

Overall I would say that this movie was an experience that I would not want to experience again. I understood the significance of everything, but in terms of entertainment value, this is definitely not up my alley at all. I would have to give this movie a six out of 10. Some people may like this movie, and I understand why they'd like it, but it did not entertain me that much.