About a Girl
The opening titles of about girl, is done in the font of text and the sound of key tones are played which makes us feel the films is going to about a teenage girl and for teenagers. The play on the title of about a boy makes it feel like its going to feel good film but an interesting point the name of the films " About a girl " keeps it impersonal.
The start of the film you can here a girl singing in a field in her own, you can just see her silhouette. Which makes us feel like there is no one looking out for her and also the fact that we can’t see her face makes her seems more impersonal. Because she’s singing Britney spears it also makes us think shes innocent and soft.
When we first see her she’s not what we expect, she has a deep mancunion accent which gives her a hard exterior because it so strong. We also kind of shocked because shes starts talking to the camera straight away as if we were mid way through a conversation with her. The sky and setting is really grey, colourless and feels like a massive prison. The way she is dressed and what she talks, along with the setting about shows us that she comes from a working class family. She starts by talking to us about how her brother shallows floss and her mum thought it was worms but the way she says it to us shows neither she nor her mother is educated.
As she task the camera makes several cuts chopping out bits that she is saying its almost like she’s talks so much they cant get it in or also that they just aren’t bothered like everyone else. The way she talks makes it also seem like there is a camera crew with her. She tells us her mother and father have divorced and her mother is left 3 children and looks down on her dad but the girl disagrees to what her mother thinks of her dad.
We start to realize she really loves her dad and wants him to look after but he seems less then interested in her. For example when there at the cafe and she talking about running away he seems like he doesn't care. Another example of this is on the day he is meant to take her out he brings her to his football games then after he goes o the pub and leaves her outside with a packet of crisps an a coke which she seems to think its normal. Her dad is also unemployed and doesn't seem to be looking for a job, which adds to the atmosphere of the area being somewhere with no prospects.
Her feeling towards her mother is different to how she feels to her dad, she seems to blame her mother for all the troubles they have. She even calls her mother a bitch, which is kind ironic because her and her mother seems to be similar, they both want to escape from there current environment , the girl through singing and the mother through scratch cards. The audience start to dislike the ,other as well when the girl tells us about the story about the mother throwing the puppy in the river when the girls bought it home without asking. Which also makes what happens in the end more ironic.
The girl starts to grow on us and we start to like her because if we look past the harsh accent and the appearance we start to realize she's just a young naive girl who has plenty of personality and is really lively. We also see the singing as escape for her because it almost makes her appear innocent to us again because it’s something a young teenage girl would do
The end of the film is disturbing and some what unexpected. When she throws the dead baby in the water like its nothing and then carries on talking about ice cream, and then we see the baby slowly floating out of the plastic bag, which some could day represents her because the way the baby floats out the bag its almost like its giving birth to it. Then when the bag gets trapped in the fence as it floats down the river almost like in a way saying the girl is trapped here for ever. I think the way the ending is composed is straight forward and not particularly dramatic, it is done in a straight forward manner like the rest of the films.
I think instead of the director getting to deep into everything like most main stream films would do and makes it dramatic, all he does is shows us snippets of her life and conversations which gives us a clear picture of her. The simplistic style makes it a good film.
