Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.

This film has heart that overshadows many of its faults. There is a lot of overacting in this film, but a lot of substance in it as well. I remember the love scene being very, very well done and very tasteful, one of the best I think I've ever seen. The song in the background fit the scene perfectly, it wasn't any "bump and grind" type of track. Kudos to Leslie Harris for making a moving as much as imperfect film.

I, on the other hand, do not agree with what one of the user's write stating that this movie was "just awful". If you have never lived in that environment or been around people like that, then how could you understand the movie? It might have not been a Matrix type movie but it had it's meaning behind it. Here we have a girl who grew up in the projects, family on a tight income, and deals with the pressures of teenage life in New York City. For someone to just say that it was plain awful is insulting..maybe they need to see the movie again and actually take the time out to try and understand what this movie is trying to say to our young people.

The actress playing the main character had some charisma, but otherwise the acting is really terrible, even for an indy. The actors themselves are clearly inexperienced, but the director apparently didn't know how to work with them to pick up the pace, and probably didn't have the budget to do more than one or two takes. The cliche dialogue didn't help much either.

While this is a very good debut for the writer/director, the end falls apart. The story revolves around a seventeen year old girl living with her parents and brothers in the Brooklyn projects. She is a good student, and spends the majority of her time working and hanging out with her friends. She meets a guy at her school, and soon becomes pregnant. Her decision to hide her pregnancy and the lengths she goes to while doing so take up the second half of the film. As good of a film as this was, I feel it really fell apart at the end. It wrapped everything up nicely, and denied the viewer the emotional payoff that the film promised. In the end, she did become 'Just another girl on the I.R.T.

Just saw this movie in my Contemporary Film class...the main character is the human equivalent of fingernails being scraped across a chalkboard in slow motion...