Odd Girl Out

"Odd Girl Out" (2005) Alexa Vega, Lisa Vidal, Leah Pipes. 4.5/5.0 stars. When a girl (Vega) finds that her closest friends start to spread rumors and ruin her life she starts to break down to the hurtful and often harmful rituals of High School. Vanessa is your average girl trying to find herself in the world. She is friends with Stacey (Leah Pipes), the most popular girl in school, until Nikki (Elizabeth Rice) and Tiffany (Alicia Morton) sabotage her friendship with the queen bee and the clique. She is tortured throughout the school year until finally, the words start to get to her, and not in a good way. The school outcast, Emily (Perry) joins Vanessa on her quest to navigate through the dreadful everyday life that our teens go through everyday. My thoughts on it-This definitely hit the surface with a stone, and made some huge points that "Mean Girls" (2004) failed to point out. HIhg School may be the hardest times of our lives. Especially when your friends turn on you, and you are all alone in a teenage wasteland of betrayal, rumors, and raging hormones. This is the real deal. The secret life of girls is NOT pretty. What goes on behind our backs-Its one place where you cannot protect your children. Parents should know that this movie does contain some very dramatic elements to it. There is some very intense moments or drama and schoolyard insults such as slut, whore, or bitch. There is some sexual references made through out the movie. Children under 13 should have an adult or guardian around for some mild discretion.

Rated TV-14 for Strong language and thematic elements.

I have always been intrigued by the fact that a school in general consists of two separate realities:the more or less controlled environment of the classroom and the unknown reality of what goes on between students once they are not supervised by their teachers. As a former educator myself, I can assure you that life at school for certain young people can be a living hell.Pestering occurs at every level: kindergarten kids who physically threaten their classmates in order to obtain candy, high-school students who desperately seek excuses as to avoid the humiliation and isolation they experience during recreation not to mention the subtle intrigues that occur at a university level."Humans" in general apparently have a genetically determined urge to reinforce their own feelings of self esteem by preying on easy victims. It is therefore of the utmost importance that parents be aware of the cruel reality that often exists in schools and pay close attention to any alarming change in attitude or conduct on the part of their children. "Odd Girl Out", sadly enough, is a brilliant account of events that are closer to reality than one initially would be willing to believe.Very convincing acting by Alexa Vega as the tormented youngster and Lisa Vidal as the anguished mother

Superior made-for-TV effort. The director, an experienced horror flick maker, has a field day playing with the evil that is produced from warehousing many unwanted kids in government run schools. There is haunting music, harsh lighting and sinister dark shadows in most every school scene. The actors all play their parts well. The drama and emotions are driven far beyond the limits of most TV movies. I watched this film with a young adult who was recently teased and shunned by her group of friends. Wow, did ODD GIRL OUT ever hit a raw nerve with her, and judging from comments posted by other viewers, it has the power to expose deep hurts in many other viewers as well.

Along with the art and drama, there are many super-nice female forms to appreciate. Excellent job LIFETIME Channel!

If you like would like to see a version of "Mean Girls" without the Comedy and with lots of drama this is your movie. I don't think I have seen a better movie that showed the real side of high school pressure. The movie actually shows what can really happen and how best friends aren't always forever, especially in a "popular crowd" because really its out to get to you. The movies by far one of my favorite movies and made me think if that would ever happened to me , what would I do? I liked how the movie made Vanessa get sucked back into the friendship with Stacey but in the end have the pressure let lose and bring it all on Stacey and show how ugly she was inside and how fake she was. This is a great movie to show to people about what peer pressuring could do to you and how effects your lifestyle. But I warn you when you watch the movie ... have a box of Kleenex because I surely needed it .

I'm a man. Previously a boy.

Except for certain advances in communications technology made since 1982, I had basically the exact same experience as the girl in the movie (with all the genders reversed, of course).

For people who have been through an experience as vindictive, drawn-out, thorough, and unrelenting as the experience suffered by the girl in the movie, this will be a movie-watching experience both very painful and very valuable.

Perhaps even more so for those of us who didn't have a parent as ideal and understanding as the one in the film. But, for the purposes of the film and its messages, that character is well-designed and serves many useful purposes.

This film covers a lot of bases in a lot of ways. It's an impressive accomplishment, seeing as it's impossible to really do justice to the subject matter in the space of a standard film. Very, very impressive.

I like hard-hitting, gritty dramas like Requiem For A Dream, Bad Lieutenant, and that sort of thing (also, harsh black comedies like Shallow Grave, Bitter Moon, etc.). This film hit me harder than any of those.

Girls can be as visibly and simply and physically violent as the stereotypical boys (e.g., the tormentors and killers of Reena Virk in British Columbia, Canada). And boys can be as invisibly and complexly and non-physically violent as the stereotypical girls.

It's not a simple world out there. And it has a lot of barbarians in it. Male and female. And they don't all fit within the usual gender roles.

There are plenty of masculine, heterosexual evil boys who behave like evil girls -- because they know it's tougher to get caught that way and that the damage done is deeper; in other words, the smarter ones use more complex and indirect methods. And everyone is far less aware of them than the big, dumb, loud, physically-violent ones -- indeed they likely never get caught because their male victims wouldn't be manly/masculine/tough/cool/honourable/etc. if they were to complain about it or admit to being bothered by it or to cry about it, would they? Just show me all the girls who lust after and fall in love with men who cry about getting bullied. Oh, that's right, there aren't any -- they're too busy fawning over the thoughtful, intelligent, emotionally-literate, understanding Alpha-male goons who are beating those other guys up. Sorry, I forgot.

It's frequently unlike the stereotype of "boy beats guy up, and it's over -- simple." And in those cases, it's particularly damaging when you've been socialized into the idiotic philistine social orthodoxy of boys not being allowed to cry, and boys have to keep a stiff upper lip and hide and suppress their feelings.

Anyway.... the film accomplishes its goals and its messages beautifully. 9-outta-10.