Review: Girl Asleep

Heavily stylised and endearingly quirky, Girl Asleep could be very easily described as “Wes Anderson does Napoleon Dynamite”, but in reality it’s much, much more than that. Sure it’s full of dorky humour and a kitsch yet meticulous 70s aesthetic, but it’s got a unique and very sweet take on the coming-of-age story. The girl of the film’s title is 14-year-old Greta, who’s just moved to suburban Adelaide and is having trouble fitting in at school. She meets another outcast kid named Elliott and the two strike up a nice friendship. Soon after, her parents decide to throw her a 15th birthday party, and reluctantly she agrees. There’s bullies, there’s sibling rivalry, there’s anxiety over appearance and romance, all the standard teenage things. It all sounds like such a simple premise. But that’s basically the point. It all sounds like such a simple premise because it is, and deliberately so: that which is generic is of course universally resonant. It’s a clever touch, as it allows the filmmakers to take this generic story and turn it into something truly original, and it means that it’s the stylistic oddities that shape the film as much as the story and characters. The visual flourishes, such as expositional “later that night” type text appearing on objects in the film or spontaneous dance sequences, are a delight. In addition, it devotes a hefty portion of its refreshingly short runtime to an intriguing dream sequence – the asleep part of the title – which plays out Greta’s insecurities, giving her closure with the people who surround her and helping her come to terms with her own changing existence. The most visually striking portion of the film, it’s also a portion that threatens to break the flow of the film and is a tad too long for what it needs to be. But I nevertheless enjoyed it and thought it matched the general mood and vibe of the rest of the film; like a true dream, it became a heightened version of the film’s reality. This is a film primarily for teenage girls, but though I was never a teenage girl I still really dug this. It’s funny, it’s a bit weird and it’s quintessentially Australian. Girl Asleep opens September 8th. Written by Ben Volchok.

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