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God Help the Girl

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God Help the Girl (Facebook0
God Help the Girl (Facebook0
What's it about:

Three young musicians meet at a crossroads in their creative and personal lives in Glasgow, Scotland in this musical drama film written and directed by Stuart Murdoch of the band Belle and Sebastian. Their inter-connections and relationships with those around them make for a dreamy summer of creative and emotional discovery.

What we thought:

Okay, I have to be totally honest. I love films about music, musicals and anything with good music in it, so obviously I was super excited to watch God Help The Girl. But, and here’s the but; while the trailer reeled me in and really made me look forward the see the film, the film was nothing like the trailer and to be quite frank, disappointing.

Just to give you a bit of background to the film: God Help the Girl is a musical project by Stuart Murdoch, leader of the Scottish indie group Belle and Sebastian, featuring a group of female vocalists, including Catherine Ireton, with Belle and Sebastian as the accompanying band. The project has released a self-titled album, an EP and several singles. Central to the project is this film, featuring songs from the project's recorded releases.

So, while I really like Belle and Sebastian’s music, the film for some reason just doesn’t hit the spot.

The film centers around Eve, played by Emily Browning, who is a songwriter from Australia who’s been hospitalised for an eating disorder. One night she slips out to go and see some live music. Here she catches the eye of Anton (Pierre Boulanger), a sexy Swiss-German rocker. She also meets James (Olly Alexander), an English guitarist who also performs at the club, but totally fails at his performance.

Eve’s meeting with James leads to her moving into a spare room in his flat. Through James, Eve meet’s his rich music student, Cassie (Hannah Murray), the three of them become friends and decide to start a band.

Browning is quite sweet as Eve, and her singing is not that bad, but her character is nauseatingly sweet. James is completely in love with her and she knows this, but totally ignores this and rather spends time with Anton, the sexy Swiss-German rocker.

While Murray is believable in her quirkiness, she totally fails at singing. Watching the three of them in their (too) old school outfits, reminiscing about what their band should sound like while striking a pose, it just screams hipster deluxe. It’s over the top. And while there are moments that I really enjoyed them breaking into song, the moments of ‘what the hell is happening’ far outweighs these.

I’m sure there are many people who will absolutely love this film, but I’m not one of them.

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