White Girl (2016) Reviews

• Who knew sex and drugs could be this boring

  ReganRebecca2017-02-05

  During the publicity blitz for this movie director and writer Elizabeth Wood made a big deal about how this was based on her real life experiences, how unshocking it was (while simultaneously playing up that their were tons of sex scenes and nudity to play up the shock factor) and how unfair it was that white women like herself were able to dabble in drugs for fun in college, while their Latino and black peers were treated like criminals for far lesser offences. Now all these things led me to expect a much different movie, but watching White Girl I was almost bored by how tame and basic it was and how little it had to say beyond that one message. Morgan Saylor plays Wood's alter ego Leah. Moving into a cheap apartment in a bad (i.e. predominately Latino) neighbourhood with her friend Katie, Leah is immediately attracted to some young Latino men she sees hanging around her street corner. One night, bored and out of weed she introduces herself to them. When they refuse to sell to her she later meets one of them, named Blue, and invites him up to her apartment. They quickly fall in love and Leah helps him upsell his cocaine at exorbitant prices to her wealthy white friends. Of course this all predictably goes bad and Leah lands in a dangerous situation where she feels compelled to save Blue, who has landed in prison. The strange thing is how boring and formulaic this all feels. I watched a scene with Morgan Saylor bouncing around in a rave with her top off and all I wondered was when the movie would be over. We watch Leah make manic decision after ridiculous decision always protected by the fact that she is young, middle class and white. But it's hard to feel for a character when she's her own worst enemy and you can see her mistakes coming a million miles away. Another thing is, if Wood was so hell bent on showing how white people have the privilege of getting away with things that their black and brown peers can't telling the story from the perspective of the white girlfriend was a huge mistake. It's too bad, I really had high hopes for this, but it fell short. A more interesting take on millennial hedonism and race and class in America is Spring Breakers which is over the top and ridiculous in a way that packs more punch than White Girl.

  More

• I would drink nail polish remover if you handed it to me

  doxxman52017-01-06

  This is an interesting film, one with probably more potential for future greatness than actual rewatch value. The acting is top notch all around, from the two leads who go through many changes to the lawyer who has truly seen it all delivering a chilling speech about black people in jail. A very promising debut from a female director that knows her stuff, from the moment doves fly away when two lovers are reunited or that moment when the camera gets tired of watching the white girl getting taken advantage of too many times and hides from the scene behind a wall before going back to a mirror reflection of said image. While at times playing like a softcore porno a la Game of Thrones and there are too many sex scenes just thrown around, the drama is intact and the WAY that the story is told is very compelling.

  More

• The title does explain what you're getting into.

  subxerogravity2016-09-06

  The movie starts out very real for the most part. It's like a very warped episode of the series Girls, a show I feel was written well because it's honest portrayal of real people, but it's a show that I dislike because I really know those people, and don't like them. That gives me an odd feeling about the characters of White Girl, which include a young college age girl named Leah moving into "the Hood", a place she only witness on a Jay Z album. She walks around with that privilege attitude as she approaches the local Latino drug dealer , who she starts a sexual relationship with. So far the movie is doing a good job at making me unsure what stereotypes I should feel sorriest for. Then the realness of White Girl becomes more movie like. The trailer shows that realness of a young girl out in the world exploring her wild side, but the movie itself becomes about Leah's drug dealer boyfriend going to jail and Leah trying to get him out using the drugs he left behind. Though what I describe seems like a zany comedy, White Girl is a very intense ride on a downward spiral. It is funny watching Leah going in over her head as she basically learns how the world she now lives in works. At the same time, the film is filled with these vivid images of violence and sex, but especially sex. But White Girl is a movie I enjoined watching, It's not the art house cinema I thought it would be, and as it started out to be, turning much more into a much more typical "indi" product that cheapens the experience, at the same time making it far more enjoyable for me. http://cinemagardens.com/

  More

• Scary, Tense and Wild...And In Some Ways Too Real

  spiritof672016-09-28

  Unlike most reviewers I saw this movie with intimate knowledge of street life, and the director got a whole lot right there. And as well, I've known noobs like the lead actress who got themselves into a life about which they knew very little until they were so deep in so fast they couldn't get back out. So with that, I was on my seat edge as our heroine went from precipice to precipice, nearly always avoiding the fall. Without a spoiler alert, she does virtually everything in this film you could to get killed or maimed and the writer/director finds ways for her to fail yet survive. There's a lot of grit here, from hard parties to transactional activities between employer and employee, and then client and counsel. It was all done very realistically, scarily so in many cases.I would love to know where the writer/director got her adviser on street sales - whoever it was really knew the game. See this movie.But be prepared to be scared, if you know the streets.

  More

• A COLLEGE VIEW OF DEJA VU

  npandya-086342018-08-17

  This movie may not win awards or having the sizzle of high budget thrillers, but it will bring nostalgia to all of the college alumni about how realistic and truthful this movie is. This movie is not perfect and may push a little too far, but anyone who has been through a trip like this will thoroughly enjoy this movie. :)

  More