L'Exilée

As I started watching The Girl (2012), from the beginning scenes it absorbed me in itself, letting me lose my control over things as an outside observer but rather float inside the story observing it directly as a third person inside the screen; I enjoyed that very much. Abbie Cornish portraits elegance and delicacy of a woman in this movie as she did in Bright Star (2009) prior to this, and features perfect sense of motherhood as she did in Candy (2006) in the scene of miscarrying the baby, but here more sophisticated. She plays Ashley, a single mother who is in danger of losing her nearly five year old son named Georgie to a woman named Gloria who can't have kids and at the moment is fostering him and according to Ashley has a plan of adopting him like the two other kids that she has already fostered and then adopted. She is from San Antonio-Texas. She can't afford a proper house and lives in a trailer. Her salary is so low and the raise she was supposed to get after three months working in a convenience store which now is turning to a year, was dismissed; "You didn't get a raise because of your attitude", says Mr. Chavez, the manager. But as the movie goes on we find out that she has no attitude and is so modest and responsible. Ashley has no money and to win in the court, she has to prove to CPS (Child Protective Services) that she is eligible to take care of her son. In a surprise visit, Ashley's father shows up on her door step and when he finds her daughter sad asks her to go and celebrate with him in Mexico. He even goes further and gives her money to buy her son a set swing claiming that he's been on lucky street in his work but later she finds that her dad is a human trafficker. In spite of despising her father for that, in an act of desperation, Ashley starts trafficking Mexicans to Austin-Texas herself. She is a beginner and doesn't know that in order to cross the river they will need inner tubes which leads to the loss of Rosa's mother, a stubborn young girl who blames Ashley for loss of her mother and claims searching for her. Looking through the drown people in police station, Ashley finds out that Rosa's mother is dead which makes her to feel more responsible for the girl. Her maternal sense doesn't allow her to hand the girl over to the strangers. She even tries to postpone her court to find her family. Rosa has no family but a grandmother in the middle of nowhere in a beautiful mountain land. I never knew Mexico had such an amazing green landscapes; it seemed a trip to heaven for me. There are scenes of desperation and poverty in the movie which made me sympathize with the Latino America, but no sympathy seems better than splitting out the word "God damn" which Ashley did after she took a through look around and saw the misery in people's looks. Ashley smokes a lot and in her definition of "Stressed" she regards it as one of being adult effects. That may be true in some senses. Her face though, is a dictionary of the word, "Stress". However, most of the times she manages it in a wise manner with her responsible choices and acceptance. Inner struggles of a mother with her conscience over a responsibility of a child and trying to win her own child back has perfectly, beautifully, and purely been pictured in this movie and what is the most mind capturing feature is combining it with natural sounds around and sometimes letting silence tell the story which is what David Riker as the director has certainly been successful at.

The positive reviews here are fake, as are the upvotes on "found this helpful". This is a painfully awful watch, and I truly feel sorry for those likewise seeing it. This was described to me as mystery/thriller.... It is propaganda and activism. it has some good actors in it, I'll give it that, although Abby is not one of them and she is laughably bad. The whole writer&director thing is a hard thing to pull off, and David Riker fails here as many have. Then of course there is the whole bit about this morality tale being at all realistic - hint: it is not. If you must see this movie, watch the trailer before hand so at least you will know how much to self medicate.

Horridly misleading synopsis. More to the point: A poor Texas woman, about to lose her son to social services, tries to smuggle Mexicans across the border for $4000 and becomes morally responsible for the small girl left behind.

A poignant story of mixed emotions, futility and hope, from both sides of the event. I agree with Box Office Magazine when they say "Abbie Cornish gives the most impressive performance of her career."

Every site on which I post reviews has consistently found the above an example of "helpful" (acceptable) information and opinion. I cannot see where ten lines of babbling fluff are required over five lines of succinct information. If IMDb finds me too offensive to print, then I have no problem with not printing for them.

I had no opinions or expectation on this film. It all started out with a crush on Abbie Cornish, but I ended up with a great deal of respect for her acting (and her Spanish) in this film. She showed a side of her that I had never seen before, but more importantly the film (and Abbie) made me aware of the culture on both sides of the Rio. The film starts with a sharp edge on the Texas side of the river, proceeds into a learning phase for me and Abbie/Ashley, and finally it softens and becomes a touching film on the Mexico side. Ashley is a much better person at the end of the film than the beginning - I hope that this is not considered a spoiler. I recommend this film wholeheartedly.

I loved this little film. The acting was good and the sentiment was sweet and tender without pushing an agenda. Ms. Cornish is an excellent actor and the little girl, "Rosa" was superb.