Blog Post 2: God Help the Girl

Blog Post 2: God Help the Girl

Written and directed by Stuart Murdoch, God Help the Girl is a visually arresting and an incredibly true-to-life film about adolescence. Though some viewers may consider it “twee,” the film accurately portrays the rickety ride of relationships and breakups during this fragile period in our lives. The story line is primarily about a shy, musical teenage girl by the name of Eve who, despite her trouble expressing her emotions, travels to Glasgow to become a musician. While at Glasgow she meets James, an awkward songwriter who has the same vibes as Eve.   They meet up with another musician, Cassie, a guitarist, and all 3 become great friends.

Notwithstanding a certain sentimental aura, the drama of the lives of Eve, and her two friends, is far from tame. The film struck me as being very similar to Francois Truffaut’s third feature film, Jules and Jim. Just as Eve forms a triangular friendship with James and Cassie, Truffaut’s film is also about the triangular friendship between the Austrian author Jules, the exuberant Frenchman Jim and the beautiful Catherine. Although God Help the Girl is about music and takes place in a different era, the cinematography of both films is similar, as is the powerful way in which they play on our emotions and tug at our heartstrings. I love how both directors are able to at least appear to ignore the audience and create art for its own sake, art that touches them, rather than the viewers. In both films we are given little hints here and there and must do more thinking beyond the facts that the film itself presents us.  Having loose plots makes both films interesting to discover. In Jules and Jim time travels freely from the present to the past to the future and back to the present and the audience is challenged to determine the chronology.  God Help the Girl equally demands that the viewer figure out where the characters are and how they got there. When Eve swallows the pills and falls into a deep sleep we think she is dead. The montage of images of her dancing and taking pictures with her friends and the slow and melancholic music confirms this.  Yet, she is not. We learn that under the weight of her troubled emotional state, she has made herself return to the hospital.

I think the main reason this film is considered quaint is due to Murdoch’s evocative soundtrack. Not only is it pleasing to the ears but unifies the characters and helps us to understand their passions. There are many songs in this film, each one better than the last as the film proceeds. Another reason the film has a pleasant tone results from the characters themselves.  Eve has many troubles in her life; she is addicted to drugs, doesn’t eat enough and tends to seek seclusion from the world.  But we don’t interpret her passivity in a negative way.  She don’t find her cynical, or lazy.  We feel her pain and want her to succeed in her musical ventures. In the beginning, Eve seems frail but as the film progresses, she hardens, yet not in a bad way. She stands up to her boyfriend, she becomes more confident and realizes her ambitions and how to achieve them. Overall, the film is somewhat of a pillow to lie on, and even learn from.