Director: Brian Percival
Writer: Julie Rutterford
Language: English
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 9 minutes
Short synopsis
As a girl relates stories about her ordinary teenage life, there is an uncomfortable sense of sadness underlying her easygoing tales, but it is not until the end that we find out the disturbing truth.
Long synopsis
About a Girl opens with a striking shot of a silhouette - against a skyline of clouds above a field - of a girl singing the Britney Spears song ' Stronger' and doing the dance routine. It cuts abruptly to a close-up of the girl talking in a strong Mancunian accent to the camera: "If Jesus were alive today - right, he'd probably be a singer ." She is walking against a backdrop of Manchester's industrial landscape, talking non-stop, mixing wry statements about stardom and singers with random quotes from her parents and descriptions of her life: her relationship with her dad, her frustrations with her mum, her desire to become a famous singer, the band she has formed with her friends. Things any 13-year-old might talk about. Her monologue is interrupted and intercut with different scenes of her with her family and her dad; her in a perfume department, sitting on a bench singing Stronger again, and on the back of a bus with her girlfriends singing 'Oops! I Did it Again' by Britney Spears and doing the routine.
As she goes on walking alongside a canal, t he girl's stories become more and more underlain by an uncomfortable feeling that the gravity of her experiences does not match her flippant retelling of her everyday life: her descriptions of her pop idols and her favourite ice cream are mixed with hints about family troubles, poverty and domestic violence. The girl is explicitly working class, and there is a desperate desire to 'show them' and to escape her circumstances when she talks about her plans to become a famous and rich singer, living in London and drinking Bacardi Breezers. In her seemingly emotionless retelling of the incident of her mum drowning their puppy in a canal after she found out that they had managed to hide it for two days from her, there is a subtle and disturbing implication that she has become wise beyond her age.
The 'underside' to her light-hearted storytelling is revealed in a shocking scene at the end of the film when, stating that she has become "good at hiding things", she throws the plastic bag she has been carrying into the canal. An underwater shot shows a newborn baby sinking slowly towards the canal bottom. The film ends with the plastic bag floating along the canal and the girl walking away.
About the film
Brian Percival chose to shoot such a gritty script for his first short film as a reaction against the glossy commercialism of the adverts he had worked on before. But this was not unproblematic, as cinematographer Geoff Boyle explains, " It was a real struggle, not lighting everything beautifully. Every shot was lit, but Brian and I found ourselves constantly reminding each other 'It's not a commercial.'" They shot on Super 16 during one week at the canal-side in Manchester.
The film stars 14-year-old newcomer Ashley Thewlis in a performance that Ewan McGregor described as "very hard-hitting and brilliant. Brilliant, brilliant." Anthony Minghella called it "a very accomplished performance... very effective", while Stephen Woolley was impressed by the film's "witty, charming script and truly shocking punch line."
The film won several awards including:
2001 BAFTA for Best Short Film;
Edinburgh Film Festival Prize for best Short Film;
City Light Award for Best Short Film;
Granada TV Short film Award;
Best Short at Raindance
Turner Classic Movie Shorts top prize.
It is included in the DVD compilation Cinema 16: British Short Films(2003).
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