About a Girl

Shocking short-film about a young girl who's the product of a broken home and hopeless dreams of being a pop star. Her dad is unemployed and spends his time playing soccer while her mom struggles to make end meet.

One striking feature of this film was the contrast by the girl's fully Americanized rendering of the pop lyrics she sings and the thick Liverpool accent that she uses in everyday speech. (It required me to put on subtitles to understand what was being said)

As sad as the life that she describes is, I was still totally unprepared for the ending.

Depicting the life of a young teenage girl in a wasteland-esque urban British estate. With towering blocks of flats looming over the setting and the disadvantaged, awful circumstances that encase the girl the twist and the execution is brilliant, a truly grim end it's a great commentary on a modern society and some of its less glamorous issues

A working class girls sings Brittany with her friends and talks excitedly about her life as she walks along the canal. However her story hints at hurts that go deeper than her talk suggest.

This short won the 2001 Bafta for best short film and was director Percival's first film after many years in commercials. The film starts with a well framed shot of the girl singing and dancing to a Brittany Spears song before going straight into a montage of her talking, hanging out with her Dad, on a bus with her friends etc. As it goes this is entertaining enough and quite interesting. The only weakness of it is that it feels like mix of two Fast Show characters – the `Brilliant' guy and the teenage girl.

However this is a minor complaint as the ending reveals the meaning behind much of her talk and the scenes we see. This really needs to be seen twice or followed by some thought to appreciate the significance of what has gone before the ending.

Thewlis is excellent. Managing to hold the screen well and be totally believable in the role. To one who is annoyed by loud teenagers singing pop songs on buses she did well to win me over.

Overall this is not an easy film to think about and does have a scene that many people will find upsetting (if only temporarily). While it feels aimless for most of your first viewing, a good performance by Thewlis is more than enough to hold the attention.

As I was watching it, I kept thinking of the similarities to parts of The Fast Show (aka Brilliant! in the US): the "Brilliant!" walking monologues with Paul Whitehouse, and Caroline Aherne's teenage monologues.

But don't be fooled. There is much more to this short film than meets the eye at first, and you'll probably want to watch it again.

I had to see this film twice to truly appreciate it. So many short films are BOOORIIING, and I guess I expected this one to be also, so maybe I was predjudiced. I paid little attention to what was being said so did not get into the film, but then suddenly I was hit by a real wake-up call at the end. SO, I went to see it again, and I have to say the performance and characterisation of the central character IS superb. The actress really makes this film a winner. The direction of her is very good, though I found the photography a little flat, but perhaps this is because it is meant to be gritty and realistic. Overall it's a wonderful short film, but it deals with a grim subject. Not a popcorn film.