I tried to give less than a star, but I can't. I keep wondering if I've seen a film worse than this. I've seen some terrible work at tiny film festivals but at least they were interesting. This is insultingly bad and shallow.
I THINK the filmmakers watched too many Harmony Korine films and thought to themselves, "that looks easy, we'll do it like that". Clearly it is not.
SPOILERS. Not sure if that's possible for such a bad film: This film manages to be BOTH so clichéd that it drips with predictability and yet also so unclear that at times you wonder what the hell is going on. We seem to have four characters and despite every trope imaginable being used to signify we're in the characters' heads, we still have no understanding of the them. So then I thought AHA! it's actually all one character split into four actors! Which would explain why they all seem to be being abused by their fathers, why they all self harm in exactly the same way and why suddenly halfway through and without consultation, they all decide to become Kiss fans. Two of the girls even have completely different accents to their fathers, which was particularly confusing- have they just found each other after years of being estranged? Did the mothers die suddenly or something? And actually, why are there no mothers? Is the film making a point about motherlessness, or are they just too cheap to get another actress? This is basic stuff.
OK, so it turns out I was right- it is four aspects to her personality. So then why are they SO similar? What's the point? Even Herman's Head understood the point of splitting the personalities is to have them be different and usually contradictory personalities. I'm not a huge fan of people taking a true story and then making up 90% of what they show, and this has done it by taking clichés and not even bothering to explore them properly. The real Alyssa had an interesting back story and exploring that- depression, suicide attempts, absent father in jail, teen mom, would maybe have given us some insight. Instead, the filmmakers turned to page 1 of the daytime TV backstory guide and gave her bulimia and a sexually abusive father- and then reveled in these scenes for much longer than was necessary, to the point of being exploitative.
The film feels like the filmmakers have watched lots of teenage girls but never actually spoken to one. I gained less insight into the protagonist, Alyssa, from this film than I did from just reading a Wikipedia article. I learned as much about Alyssa as I imagine a teacher in her school who never actually had her in a class, or a distant aunt may know.
The film also isn't sure what it's trying to say- whether it's trying to guide us to possible reasons why she did it, or guiding us to the idea that there are no reasons, these things just happen. And yet, it's also not telling us to make up our own mind, because it doesn't give us any exploration. On the one hand the camera and editing style seem to be trying to tell us that this is real, intimate and observational, but on the other hand, everything is so stagey- with characters going into direct to camera monologues- that it completely undermines the shooting style and it just feels so fake and cheap. So you don't get to watch meaning emerge from observing characters slowly develop OR from a stylistic delving into the psyche. Both modes fail. It feels like one minute the film is whispering, so you move forwards to hear it and then it's shouting, and you end up hearing nothing at all.
I don't think the acting was bad, in fact I think a lot of it was very good- but the camera was in the wrong place and had too many fake filters applied or bad camera shake added. The film was so badly directed and edited that the poor actors didn't stand a chance of coming out well, but there are still a few moments that shine.
This DID make me want to watch "Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer", "Monster" or "American Psycho"- all films which take very different approaches to covering similar territory. They do it so well it's easy to forget how hard must be to pull it off. If nothing else, this film serves as an excellent reminder of this.
I THINK the filmmakers watched too many Harmony Korine films and thought to themselves, "that looks easy, we'll do it like that". Clearly it is not.
SPOILERS. Not sure if that's possible for such a bad film: This film manages to be BOTH so clichéd that it drips with predictability and yet also so unclear that at times you wonder what the hell is going on. We seem to have four characters and despite every trope imaginable being used to signify we're in the characters' heads, we still have no understanding of the them. So then I thought AHA! it's actually all one character split into four actors! Which would explain why they all seem to be being abused by their fathers, why they all self harm in exactly the same way and why suddenly halfway through and without consultation, they all decide to become Kiss fans. Two of the girls even have completely different accents to their fathers, which was particularly confusing- have they just found each other after years of being estranged? Did the mothers die suddenly or something? And actually, why are there no mothers? Is the film making a point about motherlessness, or are they just too cheap to get another actress? This is basic stuff.
OK, so it turns out I was right- it is four aspects to her personality. So then why are they SO similar? What's the point? Even Herman's Head understood the point of splitting the personalities is to have them be different and usually contradictory personalities. I'm not a huge fan of people taking a true story and then making up 90% of what they show, and this has done it by taking clichés and not even bothering to explore them properly. The real Alyssa had an interesting back story and exploring that- depression, suicide attempts, absent father in jail, teen mom, would maybe have given us some insight. Instead, the filmmakers turned to page 1 of the daytime TV backstory guide and gave her bulimia and a sexually abusive father- and then reveled in these scenes for much longer than was necessary, to the point of being exploitative.
The film feels like the filmmakers have watched lots of teenage girls but never actually spoken to one. I gained less insight into the protagonist, Alyssa, from this film than I did from just reading a Wikipedia article. I learned as much about Alyssa as I imagine a teacher in her school who never actually had her in a class, or a distant aunt may know.
The film also isn't sure what it's trying to say- whether it's trying to guide us to possible reasons why she did it, or guiding us to the idea that there are no reasons, these things just happen. And yet, it's also not telling us to make up our own mind, because it doesn't give us any exploration. On the one hand the camera and editing style seem to be trying to tell us that this is real, intimate and observational, but on the other hand, everything is so stagey- with characters going into direct to camera monologues- that it completely undermines the shooting style and it just feels so fake and cheap. So you don't get to watch meaning emerge from observing characters slowly develop OR from a stylistic delving into the psyche. Both modes fail. It feels like one minute the film is whispering, so you move forwards to hear it and then it's shouting, and you end up hearing nothing at all.
I don't think the acting was bad, in fact I think a lot of it was very good- but the camera was in the wrong place and had too many fake filters applied or bad camera shake added. The film was so badly directed and edited that the poor actors didn't stand a chance of coming out well, but there are still a few moments that shine.
This DID make me want to watch "Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer", "Monster" or "American Psycho"- all films which take very different approaches to covering similar territory. They do it so well it's easy to forget how hard must be to pull it off. If nothing else, this film serves as an excellent reminder of this.