Mini-ish Monday: A Girl Like Her

You know, the good thing about a mockumentary is that you can have all of the hard hitting emotion and exploitative trickery of a normal documentary without any of the actual real life nonsense getting in your way. Amy S. Weber's A Girl Like Her really ramps up the real factor and, by the end, completely alienates you with the absolutely fantastical, pie-in-the-sky butt-fuckery that is it's concluding moments. It sounds like I hate this film at the moment but really I'm so in two minds about this movie, because it is pretty great. It's well made and emotional and really nails the peaks and troughs of high school life; but at the same time it's fucking dumb, nauseatingly idealistic and inadvertently satirical to great unintentional comedic effect. OK, this is going to be hard to do in three paragraphs, so we'll go good then bad. Ahem.

"This tiny thing...is my opinion. And I'm going to shove it down your throat."

One sentence blurb: A Girl Like Her is a mockumentary charting a top-ranking American high school as it deals with the attempted suicide of one of it's students (Jessica, played by Lexi Ainsworth), exploring the very real US bullying epidemic and such like. We start the film with Jessica popping hella pills and going into a coma, as you do with all that hydrocodone you just so happen to have lying around your house. It very quickly transpires that she has been suffering some pretty intense bullying from the popular girl, Avery (Hunter King) and has been encouraged to start recording the abuse by her friend, Brian (Jimmy Bennett). The acting from King and Bennett, as well as the majority of the supporting cast, is spot on and hard hitting; King is a suitably vile beast from the stygian abyss, revelling in the torture of Jessica, who sadly doesn't get a great deal of screen time due to the aforementioned coma. The documentarian style of candid cameras and talking heads works very well in the context of the narrative and keeps things grounded nicely as events unfold and we dip into the beating heart of the school. Plot itself very quickly takes a back seat in favour of developing our antagonist and pushing the very forward, but very necessary, anti-bullying message of the film, which on a whole is well intentioned and correct. OK, um, here's the bad bits.

The person we're meant to give a shit about, doing what she does for the entire run time of the film.

I have the weirdest feeling that Amy S. Weber is trying to make up for something with this movie. Very quickly do we curtail any pretence of this being about Jessica and focus solely on her harasser, Avery; an act which worryingly parallels the way in which modern media obsesses over the accused in cases of sexual assault and the like, leaving the survivor as a footnote. I know this breaks my three paragraph rule but I think it's important that you see who we're dealing with here. I apologise in advance to anyone whom this might awaken awful high school memories for; King is too perfect as the archetypal evil popular girl.

That is a face only an icepick could love.

I don't care if this is a movie about redemption and accepting that "hurt people hurt people" and all that lovey dovey nonsense. It works in theory, yes, but in theory alone; and that's exactly where this movie resides, in that magical fantasy world where the school bully would eventually see the error of their ways and apologise rather than dig their heels in like a cantankerous mare and double down on the bitch-factor. I've witnessed events very similar to these myself and in my experience no-one ever admits to being the one to blame, usually the exact opposite to tell the truth; everyone else in the school will feel guilt before the actual perpetrator will. No, it shouldn't be like that, and yes, it should be more like what happens in this film, but it feels unfair to those who suffer to assume that an apology and some tears is ever going to be enough to make up for what the victim has been put through. It is a noble message, but a heavily misguided one. Misguided would be a way to describe some of the choices of filming at a few points in the story as well; documentaries are voyeuristic and exploitative in their very nature at the best of times, but when you're secretly filming crying students and shoving a lens in the face of a grieving father you might be taking the biscuit a little.

Crew needed for new documentary. Stone heart absolutely necessary.

You don't line up a shot like that without thinking about a little thing called subtext, so this is what I think this movie is really about, and one more little aspect of A Girl Like Her lends it some credibility: the maker of the film's fake documentary and the woman who conducts the interviews throughout is actually Amy S. Weber herself. I think this film might be Weber acknowledging her past as either a bully or an accessory to someone who did these kinds of things when she was at high school. I think she understands and accepts the shallowness of these kinds of documentaries and, in likeness, of trying to apologise to a person whose life you have so thoroughly ruined. I think she never did apologise and this is her way of saying that, in a better world, this is what should have happened, but even then how much weight does that even carry? In the end, whatever you do is forced and manipulated either out of self preservation or guilt, and attempting to humanise and justify the actions of the person who did these things merely serves to trivialise the suffering of those she has affected. How do you come to terms with the fact that you did something that is irredeemably bad? I don't know, and neither does this film; but I think it sincerely wishes it did.

Either way, the sequel is gonna make for one hell of a revenge slasher.

The Office (US)

Well hello there! It's been a while since we've spoken! I hope your festivities are going well and that life is treating you excellently! I did get awfully busy/stressed with university, hence the lack of decent posting, but for now at least, we are back on track with your usual broadcasting!
So, as I mentioned, I was getting rather bogged down with university work, which only leaves one question: what TV series did I marathon whilst I should have been doing university work?

(P.S I am highly aware that I should probably be doing some kind of Christmas related post, but I am neither crafty nor anything else like Ben is; my skills don't translate well into the festivities. So suck it.)

Between season one and season two, Steve Carrell changes physically so
much, just a heads up. It's startling. 

I, like most of you probably, have been aware of The Office for some time now, but never really felt the urge to sit down and watch it properly. It was till I was chatting to a friend on facebook that she urged me to watch it, from the start and right the way through. Considering that I knew it was all on netflix and with the dread of having to write an essay, I figured that it would be the perfect time to start a new show!

#iconic

The Office is based on the British sitcom of the same name and same premise. Set in a documentary style, a camera crew follow the lives of a group of people in a paper company trying to avoid downsizing in a world where mega companies like Staples and Office Depot threaten their existence. I think that the way The Office is presented to us, the audience, is interesting because oft times the camera is outside a room peering through blinds or across the way from a car window giving us the feeling of candid camera. The genius in the actors is in the way that they, especially Michael, play to the camera; the subtle glance to the camera often brings about a performance of some nature knowing that they are On. Just as often they notice that the camera has caught them in some kind of compromising position. One on one time with the camera also gives a new dimension to the comedy from the characters. [Editor's Note: Is it just me or does it sound like Rhona's still in essay-writing mode? Poor thing...]

There are some times where I do think to myself, "erm, no, there is no way the cameras would have been able to be there or to have not caught another camera-person on camera" etc. but it's not hugely irritating and if I don't think about it too much, then it's not something that is too blindingly obvious.

Everyone always looks this grim. It's great.

It's not a show that you're going to want to marathon straight away. You'll watch the first few episodes and think, "ha! that was amusing, now on to other things." and you'll repeat that process for a few days. Then it happens. You'll watch an episode and say, "Hey, wait, they can't end on that. I'll just watch another, just to see how that goes." And then suddenly you're on season five and you've not slept in so many days, you've lost count. It takes you by surprise. My friend asked me what season I was on and I thought I was on season two, but when I went to check, I was an episode away from finishing season four.

Oh, Michael.

Season two is probably where The Office really hits its stride, so do persevere (season one is only six episodes, i'm sure you'll manage). The real draw of the show is the characters; it is really a character-based show than a plot-based one. The Jim/Dwight rivalries are always hilarious (see above gif; pranks galore) and the Jim/Pam relationship is simultaneously heart warming and heart breaking. I just love Jim, okay. I do sometimes go in waves on Michael Scott, portrayed by Steve Carrell. Scott is so insensitive and awkward and weird that I just want to shake him into normalcy; however, in an episode where he is being particularly insufferable, something happens that reminds me that, at his core, he's just a lonely guy who wants some friends, and his heart truly is in the right place; he just has trouble expressing himself.

There! Is this Christmassy enough for you? Gah, there's no pleasing you people.

It's the supporting cast that really makes the show come to life though. Kevin, the somewhat slow accountant; Angela, the stern and judgemental office worker; Oscar, the gay guy who suffers at the hands of Michael's crippling awkwardness and need to make things not weird (which ends up making things weird) when it's found out that he is gay; Stanley, the no nonsense salesman who has little to no time for Michael's antics; Phyllis, the older woman who just wants to get some work done; Kelly, the customer rep who won't stop talking; Toby, the HR representative that Michael hates for inexplicable reasons; Creed, a creep; and Ryan, the temp, who can't seem to digest the insanity going on around him.

Nope. No context.

I'd love to go further into the finer details of the plot and the development of the characters, but I'd hate to take anything away from your viewing experience, so I'll wrap things up there. There are some great faces to look out for in some of the seasons and just yeah. Stopping now before I ruin things.

What have you guys been watching?