Ashley

I can't understand the motivation behind some of the negative reviews I see here. Yes, the film is as entertaining as day-old coffee, but that is the point! Ashley is a 17-year old girl, without real friends and her mother is angry & broken-hearted herself, and nobody understands her pain or why she is so withdrawn. If you can't understand that, then your adolescence must have been pretty peachy indeed. Most of us losers felt lost and alone and didn't have the verbal skills to even explain why we felt so hopeless. I'm not going to ruin the movie by spoiling the ending except to say that she has strength in there somewhere and it finally appears. This film was haunting and I highly recommend it.

"Ashley (2013)" is an independent film directed by Dean Matthew Ronalds. It stars the young model/actor Nicole Fox in the title role. Ashley is a troubled teenager--depressed and lonely. She's a lesbian, and this causes bullying and harassment at school. Her father is dead and her mother is an alcoholic, who continues to make bad decisions in her choice of men.

It's not surprising that Ashley is a "cutter." Self-injury with knives or broken glass is fairly common among adolescent girls. It's not life-threatening, but it's a sign of significant mental health problems. (Ashley has a school therapist who tries to help her, but Ashley is very, very hard to reach.)

We learn all this in the opening scenes of the movie. The remainder of the film follows Ashley's progress for the next few weeks at school, home, and in and around Los Angeles. Life is hard for Ashley, but she is intelligent, resilient, and tough. It's hard to tell if these qualities can outweigh the bad aspects of Ashley's past and present life.

As another reviewer has pointed out, Nicole Fox has real acting ability. She is so attractive that it's easy to assume that no one will care if she can or can't act. She can act, and it's worth seeing the movie just to watch her performance.

We saw this film at its premiere sponsored by Rochester's excellent High Falls Film Festival. However, it will work well enough on DVD. As I write this review, the movie has a ridiculously low IMDb weighted rating of 4.5. However, if you look at the ratings, you'll see that more than 50% of people gave the film a rating of 10, 9, or 8. It's true that the movie received a fair number of 1 ratings. Even so, the weighting system has broken down in the case of this very good film. Don't be frightened away by the abysmal rating. This movie is worth seeking out and watching.

Watching this film I was, personally, disappointed a lot. It is common knowledge that the fundamental qualification for somebody to be in a movie, theater etc is to actually be able to act. Nicole, being role model herself, has zero acting knowledge! It is a major fault, according to my humble opinion, to give the leading role to someone who has no experience, and it seems more like a tragedy to do it when that "somebody" is really clueless about the whole acting thing. It is more than most clear that the leading character "Ashley" was not understood by the actress, she obviously didn't do her "homework"! Other than the terrible acting, it seems as if somebody made that movie within a week time. Rome wasn't built within 7 days, they say, and doing things in such a way is really repulsive to the audience, due to the fact that it shows disrespect. Overall, this movie was like my morning coffee, only cold. Yep, you expect it to be really hot and to warm up your hands, the smell to crawl into your nose, but a huge cold cup of coffee comes in and you're only left with a "nuh" and a sigh.

This film is extremely well done. Nicole Fox's portrayal of a depressed teen is spot on. The treatment she receives from her father, mother's boyfriend, classmates, and the attempted rape are all issues that members of the LGBTQ community face daily and it needed to be brought to light. It is a shame that this film did not get more widespread approval and kudos. I found it to be an extraordinary film.

Ashley the Movie was slow paced flick about a girl finding her way out of darkness. Molested by her father and in the habit of cutting her self, Ashley is a 17 year old who looks to be heading towards a dead end. She finds an older woman and discovers her true beauty through her eyes. Worth a watch only for the stunning Nicole Fox. She has really proved to be more than a pretty face. Following her success as America's Top Model, she proves that her acting talents are nothing less than her modeling skills. The pace of the movie is a little drag in places and the story is told in a black and white way with bad being too bad and good seeming as a midas touch turning all that was bad into a wonderful life. No grey shades shown whatsoever.