"Girl" too generic in its down-and-dirtiness

Girl (2020)

In the generically titled “Girl,” Bella Thorne gets real down and dirty, distancing herself even more from her freshly scrubbed Disney Channel image without an ounce of vanity. Actor-writer-director Chad Faust makes his feature debut out of this scuzzy Southern Gothic noir with some promise for the unflinching but less of the urgent directorial command than “Winter’s Bone,” “Rust Creek,” and this year’s “Blood on Her Name.” On its own terms, “Girl” conveys a grungy sense of place well, but the lean script keeps the revelations coming in such a way that makes it feel more run-of-the-mill.

Shouldering the whole thing, Bella Thorne throws herself into the role of Girl, a damaged cipher with surly attitude and steely grit. This unnamed girl also sports a septum piercing, a crop top, and a major chip on her shoulder. Having to care for Mama (Elizabeth Saunders) whose back pain was inflicted by her deadbeat father who walked out on them both, Girl hops on a bus to an armpit town in Golden County to confront her Daddy with a hatchet in hand. First, the girl stops at a seedy bar, makes not-so-nice with some of the barflies to find her father’s address. When she arrives, somebody seems to have gotten to Daddy before she did, finding his dead body in his garage. Before she knows it, Girl is running for her life from the shady town sheriff (Mickey Rourke) and his younger brother (director Chad Faust) who goes by Charmer.

Besides Girl’s competent hatchet-throwing skills, there is little actual character for Bella Thorne to play, and it is strange that her name never comes up. Thorne also can’t always convincingly sell a double-negative line, like “You don’t know nothing about nothing,” without it dripping of acting, but this might be Thorne's rawest turn to date. With one exception, no one else gets an actual name—there’s “Barkeep” and “Town Fuck Up”—but Chad Faust ably creates more character in five minutes for himself as a guy billed as “Charmer,” whom Girl meets again in a laundromat. He is a true wild card and more than a bit of a creep, but he’s chatty, oozing with charisma, and introspective yet dangerous. And then there’s Mickey Rourke, whose worn, leathery face and mumbling voice certainly make him a menacing presence as Sheriff, even if there’s little more to the role than “Where’s the money?” interrogations. 

“Girl” has no interest in getting straight to the point with much narrative momentum, however, he does let the viewer live in and soak up the corrupt, decayed milieu of Anytown, U.S.A. In fact, whenever Girl ends up at the local watering hole, the more compelling performances arrive in the margins. They are given by Lanette Ware, as local barfly prostitute Betty who has history with Girl’s Daddy, and Glen Gould, as helpful Barkeep who has history with the menacing brothers. But once it’s back to Girl looking for answers to why someone else wanted Daddy dead more than she did, everything boils down to a McGuffin, savage torture, and other icky implications. By being so stripped-down, “Girl” winds up being dreary and nondescript in its white-trash grime and bleakness.

Grade: C

Screen Media Films released “Girl” (92 min.) in select theaters on November 20, 2020 and on VOD platforms November 24, 2020.