The title is a slang term for underwear, but also could be seen to relate to maturing from childhood into womanhood, with Stella being a young teenage girl who is the last in her class to have her period, and is feeling very much left behind and the odd one out. It is a film I had been looking forward to seeing for quite a while – I had really enjoyed several of the shorts from Chen I had previously seen, and I was looking forward to this one becoming available online. The narrative is a contained situation where a girl tries to hurry on her development in the face of everyone else seeming to be more advanced than her.
It is not wholly successful in doing this, and I think it is the base writing that limits it. It has an offbeat tone suggested by the content and the delivery, but it draws out the awkwardness and the broadness of the characters a bit too much. It does have nice qualities within this, with it having recognizable things (padding the bra) alongside more distinctive events (a tribal ceremony), but it doesn't seem to build so much as deliver. I looked for much more spark and charm that it actually manage to deliver, although the conclusion was one of cheer and was well done. The writing is not helped by the performances, which I really was not sure about across the board. On one hand they are meant to be kids, so at an awkward stage and lacking confidence, but then on the other hand this awkwardness seems to be too much a part of the delivery, with faltering delivery and slightly off dialogue scenes. Young is a pretty good lead in some ways, but seemed a bit too much like Bambi, and although her advancement in the final moments is nicely done, I would have liked hints of that across her character, not just there. Haberecht is perhaps a bit too obvious a cliché, and I didn't find him to bring comedy or energy as perhaps his character was meant to; supporting roles outside of him were a bit more ordinary, but still pretty effective.
Technically the film is well made, with a good look and sound; I liked the style of delivery but it was just the lack of spark in the material that limited it. It is a little disappointing in this regard, and I did hope for more from it, but this is not to say that it is without merit, because it is still enjoyable and distracting as a coming of age story with a few chuckles and a nice conclusion; but it is not as charming or cheering as it appears it could have been.
