Shot on a bare-bones budget, Girl is a stripped-down revenge thriller with just enough plot to exceed expectations. Uniformly good performances help writer and director Chad Faust fashion a credible modern-day film noir that will not disappoint genre fans.
Faust is also one of the leads, playing “Charmer,” a backwoods sociopath confident in his ability to seduce anyone he meets. He indulges in a couple of showboating scenes, prolonged encounters that shift from innocent to deadly through dialogue laced with hidden meanings. Like the rest of the movie, these bits are based on predictable noir tropes, but Faust adds kickers that propel them into entirely new directions.
Other than those, it’s business as usual in Girl. Confrontations, threats, chases, recriminations, sudden revelations, cigarettes, beers, dropped cellphone signals, all pitched in a grimy, mean-spirited, claustrophobic drama reminiscent of Jim Thompson.
Bella Thorne plays the eponymous “Girl” as a sullen, mumbling, dim-witted, purposeful stalker. Sporting a nose-ring, bruised makeup, ragged hair, and grey hoodie, she casts off the sexy aura of her parts in Infamous and Chick Fight, two dreadful films from earlier in the year. She’s all business here, even if her character rarely knows what’s going on.
It’s an interesting approach in a film that gives up its secrets grudgingly. Girl drops off a bus in the nearly deserted town of Golden, hits a bar to find directions to her father’s house, and promptly discovers that he’s been tortured to death.
Turns out Girl had planned to kill him herself, only to become the target of Charmer and the “Sheriff” (Mickey Rourke), half-brothers looking for a bag of money supposedly hidden by her father. Each time Girl escapes a trap she goes back for more punishment, eventually leading to an effective showdown at dawn.
Working with very few sets, Faust, cinematographer Kristofer Bonnell, and production designer Alexis Debad build a downtrodden world that mirrors the characters’ empty dreams. Detritus fills the shabby interiors, cars are beat-up junkers, and boarded-up Golden looks like the setting for a zombie apocalypse. Apart from some superfluous drone shots, Girl glories in its hard-core look and feel, one that’s stripped of pretense.
Rourke delivers his typical tough-guy performance, one that’s no-frills but not much exertion either. It’s hard to ignore what’s become of his appearance. As Girl’s “Mama,” Elizabeth Saunders is effectively resentful, poisoned by anger and while hiding her true motives. And still claiming some level of moral rectitude, stealing and lying “so I could buy you books and shit.” Also making a good impression is Glen Gould as a bartender with misgivings: “You’re the nicest person to come through here and you’re waving a hatchet trying to kill people.”
That leaves Thorne, whose character displays puzzling gaps as well as an irresistible drive and determination. Girl may not be the smartest one in the movie, but her grit is admirable. So is the way Thorne plays her, and she backs up her commitment to the project as one of the film’s executive producers. Just like her character, Girl may not look like much, but do not underestimate it.
