God Help The Girl

Breaking out of an all-female mental institution in Glasgow, suffering anorexic Eve (Emily Browning) heads into the city centre to catch the latest in hot, trendy bands in the most popular of hot, trendy bars. Along the way, she breaks into the song on the train about her problems, has a little dance along too, but nobody else seems to notice… Yes, we’re in musical territory. She bumps into James (Olly Alexander) who takes her home – not like that, she was feeling unwell – and soon after they decide to set up a band, so that Eve has an outlet for her song-writing, which may be the key to helping her with her eating disorder.

Lars Von Trier once managed to create a masterpiece of a musical against the backdrop of something truly depressing with Dancer In The Dark, so God Help The Girl mixing up the Girl, Interrupted storyline could have worked, except that it’s not directed by Lars Von Trier. Instead, we’ve got writer/director Stuart Murdoch, member of the ultimate twee-ndie band Belle & Sebastian, who also supply songs of such inarguable positivity that just don’t work with their surroundings here.

Fans of the band will inevitably run out to be the soundtrack once it’s capable of being sold separately from this amateurish, obviously low budget attempt at somewhat visualising Belle & Sebastian’s humble beginnings, but everyone else in the audience will be clinging on to Browning’s film saving performance for dear life. Alexander does good work too, but he has next to no chemistry with Browning, and comes across like Napoleon Dynamite at times. Note to film-makers: using dorky chat-up lines such as “I like your knees” does not a charming character make.

Clocking in at just under two hours, everything redeemable about this film came and went over half an hour before it ends, with one unimpressive musical number after cramming up too much space and time. There are moments when everything seems to come together – when the songs, the actors, the direction all coalesce for a great scene – but God Help The Girl could’ve used with a lot more rehearsal time.