Chris Knipp
09-12-2014, 01:44 PM
Stuart Murdoch: GOD HELP THE GIRL (2014)
http://www.chrisknipp.com/newpictures/godhelp.jpg
Alexander, Murray, and Browing in God Help the Girl
Summer in Glasgow, growing up, forming a band
God Help the Girl is a coming of age musical, or musical coming of ageer, and the directing debut of Glasgow group Belle & Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch. It's charming, wispy, wistful, whimsical, pretty, and a bit overlong. If you like Murdoch's music and his brand of adorable twee, you will absolutely love this film and want to hang out with it for ages. If not, you probably just won't get it.
Eve (Australian actress Emily Browning, but playing English) is a young woman whose emotional and food issues have led her to be spending a spate of time in a Glasgow hospital. The greatest her caretaker and counselor Miss B (Cora Bisset) hopes for is that she'll get her feet on the ground and apply to college. It's the start of summer, she takes a runner, and at a band show discovers James (Olly Alexander), who plays guitar, sings, and works as a lifeguard at the university pool. They become inseparable as James and Eve join up with rich-girl Cassie, who's been taking guitar lessons from James, to form a band. Eve gives a tape of her music to a handsome young European musician, Anton (Pierre Boulanger, the boy in Monsieur Ibrahim (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0329388/reviews-9), serving as a background hunk as in Monte Carlo (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1817")) to show to an impressario. Anton and Eve have a fling, but the tape goes astray. Eve and James set to it writing songs, which of course all come out in in Stuart Murdoch's autobiographical indie rock style.
In a way this action, minus the music, could seem an offshoot of the celebrated BBC saga of youthful dysfunction and adult unreliability, "Skins," because Hannah Murray played another, quite notable, Cass in the first series with much the same problems as Eve's, and Olly played in a recent edition of the series. The bespectacled, frizzy-haired, skinny Alexander, who stood out as Greta Gerwig's young lover in The Dish and the Spoon (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3054-San-Francisco-International-Film-Festival-2011&p=26101#post26101) and the ignored son in Le Week-End (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3583-New-York-Film-Festival-2013&p=30959#post30959), makes an impression again as the frail yet poised boy whose crush on Eve goes unrequited. Their meet-cute comes when James has a fight with a drummer on stage who tries to drown him out.
The music is lilting and enjoyable and the scenes have a bright charm in stark contrast to the menacing Glasgow milieu of Scarlett Johansson's alien vampire in Under the Skin. (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3720-UNDER-THE-SKIN-%28Jonathan-Glazer-2013%29)It's enjoyable to spend time with this trio, though one tends to wonder which is meant to be the drama queen. Eve steals the show as a singer, and despite her job description as a mixed-up teenager, seems a mature adult. Given Murrah's past casting one expects Cass to have an egocentrism that never quite appears. You wonder if the film knows where it is going when songs stop the action, or idylls like a canoe trip by the three instigated by James goes on and on. Scenes play too long, then end abruptly without resolution. Eve is returned to her rehab center bed from time to time, though (unlike "Skins'" Cass) she seems pretty functional on her own. Indeed one would wonder if her casting made any sense at all if she did not deliver her many songs (largely staring right into camera) with such skill and in a tone that fits them so well.
The comparison with Skins" isn't ultimately at all in God Help the Girl's favor, despite the charm of the music, because it only reminds us of how rich "Skins'" main characters are and how firmly they fit into environments of classmates and families, surroundings only vaguely sketched here. Similarly there seem to be a host of talented young dancers and backup singers available in various scenes of this movie who are largely wasted, never integrated into the scenes or the songs as they might have been. Murdoch knows his music, but does he know how to tell a story with it? That, despite the reported decade-long gestation period, is not so easy. The plot-line is a bit vague to hang nearly two hours of scenes and songs on. The cast is fine but one gets the feeling sometimes they're just being moved about for the next song.
Under the circumstances cinematographer Giles Nuttgens composes his shots nicely and his 16mm. produces the usual bright colors, but the images are excessively grainy at times. In acting terms Olly Alexander once again is the standout. His character may be vague, but he is present, sweet, and composed in every scene and gives the best impression of being an actual personality. The plot resolution is obvious, and perfunctory. I have liked Olly Alexander a lot in every previous appearance but this movie is a bit too parochial and his role a bit too programmed. I also loved the first iteration of "Skins", but Murray isn't tweaked enough (the reverse problem? -- direction issues?). Still there are quiet British charms here.
God Help the Girl, 111 mins., debuted at Sundance in January 2014 and showed at Berlin and a number of other festivals. It's US theatrical release date is 5 September. The Metascore is up to 59. (Bay Area Roxie Theater (http://www.roxie.com/") 12 September).
http://www.chrisknipp.com/newpictures/godhelp.jpg
Alexander, Murray, and Browing in God Help the Girl
Summer in Glasgow, growing up, forming a band
God Help the Girl is a coming of age musical, or musical coming of ageer, and the directing debut of Glasgow group Belle & Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch. It's charming, wispy, wistful, whimsical, pretty, and a bit overlong. If you like Murdoch's music and his brand of adorable twee, you will absolutely love this film and want to hang out with it for ages. If not, you probably just won't get it.
Eve (Australian actress Emily Browning, but playing English) is a young woman whose emotional and food issues have led her to be spending a spate of time in a Glasgow hospital. The greatest her caretaker and counselor Miss B (Cora Bisset) hopes for is that she'll get her feet on the ground and apply to college. It's the start of summer, she takes a runner, and at a band show discovers James (Olly Alexander), who plays guitar, sings, and works as a lifeguard at the university pool. They become inseparable as James and Eve join up with rich-girl Cassie, who's been taking guitar lessons from James, to form a band. Eve gives a tape of her music to a handsome young European musician, Anton (Pierre Boulanger, the boy in Monsieur Ibrahim (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0329388/reviews-9), serving as a background hunk as in Monte Carlo (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1817")) to show to an impressario. Anton and Eve have a fling, but the tape goes astray. Eve and James set to it writing songs, which of course all come out in in Stuart Murdoch's autobiographical indie rock style.
In a way this action, minus the music, could seem an offshoot of the celebrated BBC saga of youthful dysfunction and adult unreliability, "Skins," because Hannah Murray played another, quite notable, Cass in the first series with much the same problems as Eve's, and Olly played in a recent edition of the series. The bespectacled, frizzy-haired, skinny Alexander, who stood out as Greta Gerwig's young lover in The Dish and the Spoon (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3054-San-Francisco-International-Film-Festival-2011&p=26101#post26101) and the ignored son in Le Week-End (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3583-New-York-Film-Festival-2013&p=30959#post30959), makes an impression again as the frail yet poised boy whose crush on Eve goes unrequited. Their meet-cute comes when James has a fight with a drummer on stage who tries to drown him out.
The music is lilting and enjoyable and the scenes have a bright charm in stark contrast to the menacing Glasgow milieu of Scarlett Johansson's alien vampire in Under the Skin. (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3720-UNDER-THE-SKIN-%28Jonathan-Glazer-2013%29)It's enjoyable to spend time with this trio, though one tends to wonder which is meant to be the drama queen. Eve steals the show as a singer, and despite her job description as a mixed-up teenager, seems a mature adult. Given Murrah's past casting one expects Cass to have an egocentrism that never quite appears. You wonder if the film knows where it is going when songs stop the action, or idylls like a canoe trip by the three instigated by James goes on and on. Scenes play too long, then end abruptly without resolution. Eve is returned to her rehab center bed from time to time, though (unlike "Skins'" Cass) she seems pretty functional on her own. Indeed one would wonder if her casting made any sense at all if she did not deliver her many songs (largely staring right into camera) with such skill and in a tone that fits them so well.
The comparison with Skins" isn't ultimately at all in God Help the Girl's favor, despite the charm of the music, because it only reminds us of how rich "Skins'" main characters are and how firmly they fit into environments of classmates and families, surroundings only vaguely sketched here. Similarly there seem to be a host of talented young dancers and backup singers available in various scenes of this movie who are largely wasted, never integrated into the scenes or the songs as they might have been. Murdoch knows his music, but does he know how to tell a story with it? That, despite the reported decade-long gestation period, is not so easy. The plot-line is a bit vague to hang nearly two hours of scenes and songs on. The cast is fine but one gets the feeling sometimes they're just being moved about for the next song.
Under the circumstances cinematographer Giles Nuttgens composes his shots nicely and his 16mm. produces the usual bright colors, but the images are excessively grainy at times. In acting terms Olly Alexander once again is the standout. His character may be vague, but he is present, sweet, and composed in every scene and gives the best impression of being an actual personality. The plot resolution is obvious, and perfunctory. I have liked Olly Alexander a lot in every previous appearance but this movie is a bit too parochial and his role a bit too programmed. I also loved the first iteration of "Skins", but Murray isn't tweaked enough (the reverse problem? -- direction issues?). Still there are quiet British charms here.
God Help the Girl, 111 mins., debuted at Sundance in January 2014 and showed at Berlin and a number of other festivals. It's US theatrical release date is 5 September. The Metascore is up to 59. (Bay Area Roxie Theater (http://www.roxie.com/") 12 September).