Girl

Saw this at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival

"Girl" is a story about the curious relationship between a girl and her mother is threatened by the hostile community around them. Director Adura Onashile clearly showcases she has talent on framing camerawork and portraying a mother and daughters relationship. The film has some pretty strong aspects that I appreciate.

Throughout the film, there is beautiful camerawork throughout and great musical soundtrack provided along. The performances between the mother and daughter were great and interesting to observe. Stories like this are pretty familiar as there had been films like this before but Onashile offers some new ideas with the writing and direction for a predictable story. There are also with interesting character dynamics displayed throughout and some good emotional moments between the characters.

Despite the positives, unfortunately the film does suffer from its issues. With characters, some of the background characters felt a little underdeveloped and certain choices made from the characters were a little strange. The editing was noticeably really bad as there were some really bad edits that took me out of the film a few times.

Hearing the Q&A, the director seems very passionate about this project and I can understand what she was trying to go for and why the film was presented the way it is. The film isn't perfect as it suffers from a little dull narrative but the overall experience was fun to watch.

Rating: B-