Girl in Progress Review
Migraine in progress.
Girl in Progress runs 93 minutes and believe me, you will feel each one of them, especially after it feel like the movie is over but then drags on for another fifteen minutes. It’s like passing 93 kidney stones. At first glance it looks like a chick flick but honestly I have a hard time believing this is the kind of film women want to see (of course, based on my dating life there is a lot about what women want that I don’t have a clue about, so maybe I’m wrong). It is completely contrived, manipulative, confused, and stuffed with artificial import.
All that being said, the writer took a semi-novel approach to dealing with all the teenage coming of age cliches. You see, I like to think of the writers and directors of a movie as the captains of a mighty ocean liner navigating a cold and unforgiving sea. In this analogy I liken cliches to giant icebergs (or perhaps sea monsters). A competent captain will steer around these icebergs to avoid disaster, whereas an incompetent one will blunder into several, threatening the integrity of of the ship. What the captain of the R.M.S. Girl in Progress did was point the bow of the ship directly at the nearest one and then bounce between them all like a pinball inside a group of bumpers. (Titanic image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
This was a direct and purposeful move. The teen age girl decides she needs to experience a classic coming of age story and then scripts out a series of events based on research into the genre. She lays it out in a detailed plan including failing to live up to her potential, disappointing her teachers, dumping her nerdy best friend, and culminating in losing her virginity to a callous womanizer. Unfortunately, instead of using the cliches as a tool to rise above the medium the story gets mired in them, stuck in the mud and slowly sinking. Furthermore, the creepiness factor, starting out at about a 7, shoots up to 11 when we get to the deflowering stage. In a graphic example of miscasting the girl, who looks barely fifteen through most of the film, is about to hook up with a guy who looks like he should have already dropped out of college and been working at Trader Joes for three years while living in the Mission.
The other interesting thing about this film is it is rare that I can say I hated every character in a film, but in this one I did. It was like a contest to see who could be the least appealing character on the planet. The teenage girl Ana (Cierra Ramirez-All In, Wish Gone Amis, Star and Stella Save the World) was overly precocious and so artificial (her character, not Cierra herself. I thought she did a decent job) I kept looking for an off switch on the back of her neck; her mother Grace (Eva Mendes-Fast Five, We Own the Night, the Other Guys) was a cartoonish caricature of both a struggling single mom and neglectful parent; Grace’s love interest Dr. Hartford (Oh, God Matthew Modine. What happened to you? Remember when you were cool and played Private Joker in Full Metal Jacket?) was a conniving, cheating manipulative bastard; Grace’s boss Emile (Russell Peters-New Years Eve, Source Code, the Legend of Awesome Maximus) was a greasy abusive boss; Ana’s deflowering target (Richard Harmon-Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, Judas Kiss, Trick r’ Treat) was a sleazy hipster loser; and Grace’s other sort of love interest Mission Impossible (Eugenio Derbez-Jack and Jill, Rob) looked, sounded, and acted like the local serial killer. If it was a contest I can’t accurately tell you who won but I can certainly tell you who lost: the audience.
I feel spent already and I haven’t even gotten into the story. It is of young Ana and her mother Grace. Grace blatantly ignores her daughter, who is feeling it. In an English class Ana learns what a coming of age story is and decides to experience one in order to escape her childhood sooner. She embarks on a mission that has “desperate cry for help” written all over it which everyone manages to miss. Meanwhile her mother is sleeping with the married least appealing man in movie history while holding down two jobs. Ana purposefully does increasingly bad behavior and plans to lose her virginity to the school creep. She dumps her best friend in order to hang out with the school bad girl (I say girl because that was her roll, but in another example of bad casting she looked ten years older. Brenna O’Brian-X-men Last Stand, Beneath, Charlie St. Cloud), steals money, lies to get alcohol, and basically strives to ruin her life as efficiently as possible. Coming of age cliche crap ensues. The ending manages to avoid actually having an ending.
The stars. I will say that both Cierra Ramirez and Eve Mendes did the best they could have done with the limited and artifical roles they were handed. Acting overall wasn’t bad. One star. Eve Mendes was super, duper, uber hot in this film and had the right outfits to illustrate the point. One star. There were a couple scenes that didn’t totally suck, including the opening one. One star. Total: three stars.
The black holes. Complete failure to give me a character I at all found appealing. Two black holes. The movie was massively confused. Was it a drama? A comedy? A tragedy? A coming of age film? Two black holes. A big chunk of this film was creepy x100. One black hole. The entire premise of the film felt contrived. One black hole. Mistaking the cliche bull for the cliche cow and trying to milk it for the entirety of the film. Two black holes. The ending came out of left field and resolved next to nothing. One black hole. Casting that looked like they didn’t even try to get kids of approximately the same age. One black hole. Total: ten black holes.
A grand total of seven black holes. Gah. I’d like to give this film an A for effort, but really can only give it more than about a B-. The director (Patricia Riggen-Lemonade Mouth, Under the Same Moon, The Cornfield) did try to do something different and I’ll give her credit for that. Should you see it? Probably not. Date movie? Only if she suggests it. However, if you do see it as a date movie I can say there isn’t a single appealing or sexy male in this film. It won’t be hard to shine in comparison, unless you are a registered sex offender and/or missing most of your face. Bathroom break? Pretty much anywhere in this film, but if I were pressed for a moment I would say any of the scenes involving the English teacher (Patricia Arquette-Stigmata, True Romance, Ed Wood). She is cast as some kind of Yoda-like spiritual guide but most of her messages are pretty prosaic and her exposition generally redundant.
Thanks for reading. Dictator coming out tomorrow so I will try to see that, although Wednesday is also my normal movie night at my friends house. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu or post comments about this film here. If you have an off topic question or suggestion feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
P.S. Want to hear something weird? I just looked up Patricia Riggen, the director of this film, on IMDB and have to say I find her strangely attractive. She has that nerdy intellectual look I really like. Of course, after having just dumped all over her movie if I were to meet up with her she would probably set fire to my car, most likely with me tied up in the trunk. Not a lot of chance for romance there. However, I think you, my beloved readers, might use this fact to appreciate the integrity if my reviews. Normally when I find a woman attractive I try to find the positive in everything she does (“Wow, you blow your nose in such a demure and ladylike manner. I’ve never seen such clarity in mucus before!”). Have a good night.
