God Help the Girl

A movie about a young woman with an eating disorder trying to deal with the real life and using music.

It is a pretty nice idea. The movie doesn't really have much depth though. We don't really know much about characters and don't see them develop very far. It is just a little episode of their lives when they were talking about making a band.

The reason why it isn't a very deep movie is probably because it is a musical. There is more focus on the songs than on the characters and their personalities and stories. My problem in this case that I am not a fan of this kind of music. The songs had a pleasant sound to them but they all sounded kind of the same. Their performance was also not very exciting. Emily Browning was a great singer but there was nothing happening during the songs. Just some walking or sitting in a tub. The only song that stood out for me was the one they performed at the retirement home. This is probably because it was the one performance that seemed to have real energy and character.

Still the movie was not bad. I think what helped a lot were the visuals. The style and the settings were beautiful. My favorite part of the movie was them kayaking. Mainly because of the gorgeous scenery.

For some reason I expected a little more from Stuart Murdoch who has written some beautiful songs, even though with varying degrees of lollipop. In God Help The Girl he does a few things well. The dance and musical sequences, though possibly jarring to some, are blended into the film reasonably well. But the rest of it is pretty shallow. It's as if he had the idea of jumping into the ocean but got to the edge and just paddled, not really able or wanting to get wet. For example, James is potentially an interesting character but Stuart doesn't develop him beyond the paper thin. At one point in the film, Anton (Pierre Boulanger) describes Eve's music as, and I'm paraphrasing, baby stories for young girls. I think Anton's analysis could equally apply to God Help The Girl.

although I'm sure I could have never been so obnoxious.

three young adults drone on about music and the meaning of life. despite the global recession, glasgow is a pretty peachy place to live; there's a distinct lack of food insecurity, job scarcity, impossible rent and heating bills. that guy who chats you up at the gig isn't a total skeeze. maybe this is is all on purpose; maybe it's supposed to be a fantasy.

I've been following b&s for quite a while, despite the twee label. reading thru old interviews many of the events of the fiim are in fact quite autobiographical; there's a depth to the music which has been earned. I got the distinct impression that ms browning did not have quite that same depth, furthermore she seemed to struggle to relate to her character. this is fine is mr murdoch's intention was to create a light romantic-comedy-musical, but if so, why include the darker elements? it's possible that I'm entirely too close to the subject matter. a painful watch, and, what's worse, poorly acted.

**edit** let's face it; this really wanted to be a film about ME but murdoch was either frightened of being so honest or didn't think it would sell tickets. as someone who had ME, I know what he is trying to say but won't say. it doesn't work! I can totally understand the compartmentalization at stake here: the need to exist in a state of semi-bourgeois lightheartedness; to lie; but the script betrays itself.

maybe some day someone can write a feature film on what it's like to have your life totally stripped away from you before age 20; to exist in a twilight zone of the barely living; to have to pretend that it's not happening to you and you are "only" anorexic and depressed. this wasn't it!

There was a lot to like about God Help the Girl but despite a few good individual scenes, but it didn't flow together as a story that well. Maybe writer/director Stuart Murdoch needed more creative feedback and better editors than he got. Certain scenes and characters just show up out of nowhere with little connection to the rest of the story, like the WTF scene of Eve going on a bender with some girl we never see before or since. The main character of Eve was weakly written. Her past and her motivations were vague. The movie would have been far better with James and Cassie as main characters and Eve as a side character.

You could see God Help The Girl as a culmination of Belle & Sebastian's (a band named after a fictional band that Murdoch's songwriting centered on) characters and themes spanning their nearly 20 years as a band. James, Cassie and Eve seem derived from the archetypal characters from B&S's songs. The movie though develops them in a shallow and haphazard way that doesn't really do justice to the insights and characters brilliantly explored in the individual songs. I think Murdoch could make a good movie, but God Help The Girl was just so-so. The music was excellent at least.

God Help the Girl is a very unusual film because it is like combining an old fashioned musical with a modern angst-ridden coming of age movie. The overall results are extremely enjoyable and I was surprised that this hip film still appealed to a tragically un-hip old fogy like me!

Emily Browning plays Eve, an exceptionally depressed anorexic young woman who has been getting in-patient treatment for her illness. However, she disappears one day and soon meets a very nerdy looking guy, James. They are later joined by James' friend, Cassie, and the trio decide to form a band. Now this isn't the normal sort of indie/hipster band and the trio find that they actually have a really great sound (I was very impressed by the singing). What's next? See the film.

Throughout the movie, Eve breaks into song and the film has little surreal breaks during which the lyrics tell about her life and inner struggles. While Gene Kelly or Dick Powell might have done this during the golden days of Hollywood back of yesteryear, this is not something you'll see in films today. This gives the movie uniqueness. This, combined with the real likability of the quirky characters, gives the movie a charm that make it impossible to dislike. Try it yourself...I think you'll probably feel the same. And, you might just find yourself singing along with Eve or breaking into song yourself after the movie has ended.