God Help The Girl
Director: Stuart Murdoch
Starring: Emily Browning, Olly Alexander, Hannah Murray
111 mins; Class 15;
Eden Cinemas Release
God Help the Girl started out as a project by musician Stuart Murdoch, leader of the Scottish independent band Belle and Sebastian.
The songs in the project fall under the indie pop banner typical of the band’s output, yet they are performed by a number of female vocalists not associated with the band. The songs’ lyrics tackled the many problems of young women on the cusp of adulthood.
The project evolved into a feature film, written and directed by Murdoch himself, and proves to be charming little gem of a musical movie.
God Help the Girl opens with a young girl climbing out of a window of a stark building.
Her shift attitude indicates she is absconding… and she promptly bursts into song. This is Eve, (Emily Browning), a patient recovering from depression in a Glasgow hospital, unable to connect with anything or anyone except the songs that swirl around her head.
As she tries to get away from the hospital authorities – often with no success – she makes friends with James (Olly Alexander) a musician, and his singing student Cassie (Hannah Murray).
Both, like Eve, want to create and make music, yet are unsure of what comes next.
What does come next is a charming coming-of-age story about three disparate souls whose love for music provides them the purpose of life they all lacked.
The writer/director has crafted a joyous film, populated by idiosyncratic characters and based on a very original script.
Love for music provides them the purpose of life
The story is told as much by the expressive dialogue and the quirky songs that burst forth throughout. These serve not merely as a musical device, but as an important part of the narrative. That the songs have titles like I Dumped You First, Funny Little Frog, The Psychiatrist is In, God Help the Girl, Pretty Eve in the Tub and I’ll Have to Dance With Cassie illustrates this perfectly.
That the whole comes across as not nauseatingly sweet is also down to the performances from its three protagonists.
If the story is heightened by the musical element, the realism of the piece hinges on the relationship between them.
Happily, Browning, Alexander and Murray gel together perfectly well, richly reproducing the foibles, vulnerabilities, emotions and, it must be said, musical talents that make up their characters.
Browning is a revelation as Eve, nailing her dark and at times disturbing moments, with lucidity. Alexander is adorably dorky with his fumbling insecurities and Murray’s beautiful English rose cover come with a steely determination in her Cassie.
Filmed in Glasgow, the city plays as much of a part in the film as its characters; Murdoch clearly madly in love with the town, his locations – be they streetscapes, gardens, cafes, nightclubs or hospitals – providing a warm and vibrant background to proceedings.