Is there a talented young actress who has been in more well-intentioned
misfires than Emily Browning? From Zack Snyder’s muddled metaphorical Sucker Punch to Julia Leigh’s misguided
objectification parable Sleeping Beauty
to Brad Silberling’s good, but franchise-nonstarter, A Series of Unfortunate
Events, Browning has an admirable adventurousness in selecting projects.
It’s too bad that the final products can’t live up to the artistic impulses
behind them. But even in bad movies, she’s good. She’s too compelling a screen
presence to go unnoticed, with her small frame, wide eyes, and an ability to
slip easily between controlled intensity and cool passivity, often drawing
attention even as a film might crumble around her.
God Help the Girl
has her latest lead role in a misfire, though it’s not as spectacularly failed
as some of her other films. It has its charms. This is a sweet and simple
little indie rock musical written, directed, and scored by Stuart Murdoch of
Belle & Sebastian. It casts Browning as a Scottish girl hospitalized for
mental problems, including an eating disorder revealed in a startling shot as
she stands on a scale, her sides tight against her ribcage. She escapes from
the institution into the welcoming arms of a maybe-love-interest, a benignly
friendly shaggy-haired guitar-playing young guy (Olly Alexander). Together,
they meet another musical young person, a sweet girl with a nice voice (Hannah
Murray). The aimless trio decides to form a band.
There’s not much to the story beyond the shuffling coming-of-age,
self-discovery, puppy-love, let’s-put-on-a-show tropes it so delicately and
simply deploys. To Murdoch’s credit, his directorial debut showcases (with cinematographer
Giles Nuttgens) a fine eye for sun-dappled imagery and an even finer light
touch when it comes to plotting. He’s not hitting the emotional beats too
terribly hard, trusting in his music and his performers to get the idea across.
It’s structured around simply staged musical sequences in which the actors turn
towards the camera and pose in twee music video blocking as they sing fragile,
melancholy melodies that lilt pleasurably. The songs have twinkling sing-song
patter stuffed with wordy syncopation and spacey hippies-by-way-of-Hallmark metaphors.
These plaintive moments of emotion and connection through
musicality, with characters twirling their way through soft, colorful sets, are
gently strung together with wisps of narrative. Little happens by way of plot,
Murdoch preferring to hang out with the characters as they fumble towards quiet
revelations and sweet connections. That’s fine in theory, but in practice the
characters are so undercooked that the flavor of those endless moments turns
out fairly bland. Scenes of conversation and montage exist only to get us to
the next musical number.
In song, it is best, but the longer we poke around in the
limp drama and mumbly dialogue, the more the movie’s modest charms slip away. If
you’re as starved for new musicals as I am, these sweet, forgettable tunes
might be worth it. But I couldn’t shake the feeling of disappointment as the
movie failed to cohere into something greater than the sum of its notes.
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