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Girl Movie Review

Girl is a 2018 Belgian drama film directed by Lukas Dhont and starring Victor Polster. It’s a controversial movie that was just wrong on so many levels.

Lara, a 15-year-old, struggles with an identity crisis as she is born a boy but dreams and aspires to be a ballerina. Determined, she strives to balance dance lessons and hormonal treatments. This was the feature film debut of Lukas Dhont, and although it does showcase some strong filmmaking from the start, it is very messy in its storytelling and message, thus being quite inferior to his later effort ‘Close’.

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When it comes to transgender issues, I have mostly liberal views with a couple of conservative reservations. This movie managed to somehow anger both of those sides within myself in a truly impressive feat that is to be seen to be believed. Thus, I cannot really imagine anybody aligning with this movie politically as it’s just so inherently wrong.

The film basically promotes puberty blockers, which I am vehemently opposed to. It mostly brushes aside the many dangers of sex reassignment surgery and the infertility side effect is just never mentioned, which was obviously problematic. And just starting a transition before the age of eighteen is highly controversial, if not plain immoral on the part of the doctors and the parents.

On the other end of the spectrum, the movie fares even worse. It is very easy to understand why the transgender community themselves were so angered by this story. This is pure misery and trauma porn that treats its protagonist in such a sexualized manner that was downright creepy and disturbing at times. That ending will stick with me for all the wrong reasons. I do get the message behind it, but actually depicting self-harm in this sickly grotesque capacity was extremely problematic to me. And it was unnecessary to go that far at the end of the day.

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Girl is just a miserable film to go through, which doesn’t mean it’s bad. What are the positive aspects here? Well, there are many. One is the technical aspects. The cinematography, editing and directing are all strong. The acting performances are also very good. Victor Polster was outstanding in the main role and I have no qualms with this casting as he fitted the role like a glove with his highly androgynous look.

What also worked was the father-daughter relationship, which was the emotional crux of the movie. This father is just a wonderful human being and the film treated this relationship in the most dignified and human, yet realistic manner possible. You can just sense the love and care between the two and their shared moments were so endearing and uplifting that they elevated what was otherwise a torturous viewing experience.

Girl is basically hyperrealism at its worst. Why do we have to explore transgenderism or any other subject for that matter in such a detailed manner? There is no need for it other than for the sensational shock factor. The excessive tucking, self-harm and bodily issues led to the film focusing just on the physical instead of the psychological aspects of being trans, which was one-sided and offering far from the whole picture.

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