Latest / Film Curious / Streaming Spotlight: The Starling Girl Review + Analysis - A Masterclass in Precise Visual Storytelling

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Streaming Spotlight: The Starling Girl Review + Analysis - A Masterclass in Precise Visual Storytelling · Film Curious

0:00
I was like 13 or 14. You know, like, I just. Whatever.
0:02
You wore like a white bra instead of a tan bra, you know, like,
0:07
right?
0:07
Like, we've all made that mistake as younger people.
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But I remember that being really embarrassing, you know?
0:28
Hello and welcome to film curious.
0:30
Today I'm joined by my best friend.
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Welcome, Nicole. How are you this afternoon? Good.
0:35
I'm excited to talk.
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About a movie that I don't think I would have seen
0:39
if you hadn't brought it to my attention, because I did not know about it at all.
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So excited to be here.
0:44
Oh, well, thanks for coming on.
0:45
Yeah, the film were going to be covering today is The Starling Girl,
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and that is directed and written by Laurel Palmetto stars
0:52
Eliza Scanlan, Lewis Pullman and Jimmy Simpson.
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And a brief overview of what this film is about is a 17 year
1:02
old Jem Starling struggles with her place within her
1:04
Christian fundamentalist community, but everything changes
1:07
when her magnetic magnetic youth pastor Owen returns to their church.
1:12
This was a film that, I mean, I just compile lists of movies
1:17
that I need to watch, and this was one that I had,
1:20
and, well, it's not really my fault.
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I'll say that because we have this problem where most of the time
1:27
you're not getting indie movies at a theater near you.
1:30
Right.
1:30
So the Starling Girl had come out in 2023.
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It did have a lot of acclaim at the festivals, the film festivals.
1:38
It was doing really well, but it was just nothing that
1:41
I was able to see anywhere near me.
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So it was on one of my lists of like a Must see
1:47
had really great reviews on it, and then I don't think
1:51
it came to streaming until just a little while ago.
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I caught it on Netflix and I was like, oh, you know, it
1:58
struck me right away that I was like, oh, this was something that I wanted to see.
2:01
Now it's finally on Netflix.
2:03
So that is a way for everybody to go see it.
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And I did want to make this episode
2:08
because I was like, yeah, I want everybody to know how good this film is.
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And yes, it's three years later at this point, but I think that I,
2:17
that I would love this filmmaker, not that my tiny podcast can, can do much,
2:23
but I would love this filmmaker to get recognition for this movie.
2:28
I think it is so stellar in terms of storytelling
2:32
and even the cinematography, the shot choices, we'll get into it.
2:37
But yeah, I just, I think I just really wanted to
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showcase this film because I watched it and it really blew me away.
2:44
And I think what I'll say about it to kind of get us into the conversation is
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I really appreciated her way of storytelling,
2:55
that she's not going to give you a point of view that you should have.
3:00
Like she has an unbiased way of telling this story.
3:03
Like, yes, we are getting the point
3:06
of view of gem like in her situation, right?
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But I don't feel like the way she tells this story
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with the camera, with the characters, really takes a side
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you know, of, like what's right and wrong here.
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And so I really just I really appreciate that.
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I think it had a really nuanced way of telling it.
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And of course, like with this sort of story and Christian fundamentalism,
3:32
you could right away be turned off by the religious aspect of it, the community.
3:37
But I don't think she was trying to tell whether the, the,
3:41
the fundamentalism was.
3:45
You could tell it's wrong at times, right?
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When like gem is being treated much older than she is or then like a child.
3:53
But I think she wasn't taking.
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I appreciated how the the writer just wasn't taking a side here.
4:00
She's just, you know, this is the way that this community
4:04
runs and kind of take it from there.
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So yeah, that's I think what I'll, I'll say to dive in.
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Nicole, do you have any like first thoughts about the film or.
4:14
Yeah, I mean, similar to what you were just saying,
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I think that did really strike me that gems character to
4:22
is allowed that room to just be what she is,
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which is like a 17 year old girl in maybe a situation
4:30
that's a little bit more intense in terms of like scrutiny
4:34
and the way that she views her desires and what she's able to do.
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But I really, really liked her transformation.
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I get not her transformation, but it was very nuanced and subtle
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and from scene to scene to and Eliza Scanlan is like, amazing.
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I think we both love her,
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but that she just in some just her face that you're able to see like
5:00
so the emotions of like just pure rage sometimes simmering underneath of her face
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and then just devastation,
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like there were so many moments where she really made me cry.
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And she makes you feel like because she has talked about to how
5:12
she thinks it's funny, she keeps getting cast as like a teenager.
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I think she's 27 or 28 at this point, but she looks so like in the movies.
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She does still look.
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Yeah, I mean, if she was 28 now and she was only 25 then in this film.
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Yeah. But yeah, she looks like she.
5:29
Yeah, I mean, it makes sense.
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But she. Would still cast her on this.
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But she just like in anything that I've seen her in and in this movie to get that.
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But then also to get that kind of that power
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and that's I think that comes across really nicely to
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is the way that she is exploring that at that age
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and figuring out the power that she has with her sexuality.
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But it is a very specific community.
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So because she is in a Christian fundamentalist
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community to it's not like with a regular teenage girl either,
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where you can maybe figure it out, you can sort of experiment.
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There's like this other layer to it that was this, like constantly
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giving me this kind of anxiety when I was watching it, too,
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of how people were going to perceive her when they found out about things
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she was doing.
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I think now we gave a nice little overview.
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I think I would want to get into spoilers of this now.
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So if you haven't seen The Starling Girl, hop on a Netflix.
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Go watch this.
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This is definitely worth your time because I just really want to get into
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a deep dive about it.
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So full warning spoilers now.
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So yeah, Eliza Scanlan performance I think is incredibly
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stand out, as you were saying.
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And I think, though, that the way that
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the storytelling works with the camera on certain visual choices
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and framing adds to that performance, right?
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So with I notice with the camera,
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we're never too far away from Jem.
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You know, there's not a ton of wide shots in this film from my memory.
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And I watched it a second time just so it was kind of fresh.
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We are kind of very close with her most of the time, and I think
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that lends to Scanlon performance because we get.
7:25
Yeah, a lot of, you know, you were saying those those micro expressions almost.
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And you know, we feel her embarrassment.
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You know, we're with her when she feels humiliated.
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And again, it's just a great performance.
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But also the way that the story moves,
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you kind of immediately get a grasp of like what this church is.
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I think, like that's another thing is like, it's a very established
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very quickly with very few scenes.
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So I think that's like a really deft way of storytelling to write
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that you can be like, this isn't this runtime
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I think is like an hour and 45 minutes, right?
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And maybe it is like fill two hours,
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but she doesn't waste the director.
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Laurel permit does not waste any time.
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She she puts you right into that church already.
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We know somebody apologizing because of what he did.
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What kind of transgression?
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This this young teenage boy must have had.
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And they sent him away
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to their correctional kind of summer camp or just camp?
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Yeah. To get them fixed. And.
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And he has to do this humiliating thing of having to apologize to, like, for his.
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I'm putting this in quotes transgressions because we don't know what he did.
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And I'm assuming that is probably not that bad
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for our outsider point.
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Of view.
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I think. Did they say. What he at one point like the boys?
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They're they're talking about it.
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And I think they say
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that he was looking at porn like on his parents computer or something.
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I miss that detail. Yeah.
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Which so which again, maybe is not exactly what happened, but
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yeah, that would be a good example of what you're saying of like,
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you probably don't need
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to be sent somewhere and we know to he's got a scar on his hand
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that's some kind of physical punishment took place.
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So yeah.
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So very quickly we get that scene, then we get Jim.
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And you know what?
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This I felt for her in this scene because I did not grow up
9:24
in a fundamental Christian
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or even really strict Christian household.
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But growing up, my my pastor at my Lutheran church,
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his wife was the leader of the dance troupe, and she held like
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dance classes and lessons, and they would perform up on the stage
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like of our of our church like that.
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So like, yeah, I was having kind of like flashbacks to those, to those days.
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Right.
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And so I knew immediately
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like the feeling that Jem was having of the kind of like,
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you have to be so self-aware of of who what you're wearing,
10:04
who you're being a politeness like, no, I didn't have to worry about,
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like, really what I was wearing. But the moment.
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So this hit me hard because the moment that
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a mother pulls them aside, Jem and her mother get pulled aside
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by another mother in the church to let Jem know that her.
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You can see her bra through her dance outfit,
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and you can feel Scanlan humiliation there.
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I have had that moment happen to me in real life where like another mother had
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like kind of pointed out to my mother that you could see my bra.
10:39
Yeah, sure.
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When I was young, you know,
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I must have been like 13 or 14, you know, like, I just whatever.
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You were like a white bra, sort of a tan bra, you know, like,
10:49
right.
10:49
Like we've all made that mistake as younger people.
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But I remember that being really embarrassing,
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you know, and so I could really, like,
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relate to this whole, this whole setup of the film.
11:02
Right.
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So and I love that's all within like the first five minutes
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and then she meets own right.
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And he's smoking a cigarette and she's crying
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and he's automatically like somebody different.
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Somebody outside
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who doesn't maybe doesn't feel the same way as his community.
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Right.
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So I think the setup of the film is actually pretty brilliant
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now that I think of it.
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And it gets right into it
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and it tells you everything you need to know all within ten minutes.
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Yeah.
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The savages it very quickly in that moment, specifically
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to the first time that we see him in the background,
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he's smoking and he's like, oh like don't tell anybody.
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And she's crying.
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And obviously she doesn't want anyone to know about that either.
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So like it, it is very clever because it does also immediately
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establish them both as being people that maybe outside of the norm of
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what they're supposed to be doing and having that moment of vulnerability.
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And then it does really nicely set that up for the rest of the movie
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so that it's like the two of them have some kind of connection.
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But until you were like laying it out like that, I didn't think about it.
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But you're like, there's so much done so quickly.
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Especially like if you have no, like, understanding
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of this type of community, that it establishes
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something like that, like
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with the broad detail, or maybe some people will be watching.
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It would be like, what the hell?
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You know, like you had you understood that experience.
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But some people, especially, I think if you're not women in general,
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maybe not growing up and having that experience of like
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attention being called to your body for literally no reason
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other than the fact that it can be seen, was quite interesting.
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And I, I Laurel permit, I guess.
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Yeah, that's her name, but I was reading that she did research.
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She went to some Christian fundamentalist communities in Oklahoma,
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and she was saying that it was really sad to her
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that the women who was really clear that,
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like they were taught to view their desires as sinful.
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And at first she was like, wow, this is really backwards.
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And like, I'm glad that I didn't grow up like this.
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But then the more she thought about it, she was like,
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then I realized how much I did relate to them, actually, because she's like,
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I did have experiences where society taught me how to think
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about my body or brought attention to my body in a certain kind of way.
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It wasn't exactly the same,
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but that she was like, oh, actually, I can connect with this.
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Yeah, I mean, surprisingly, and I guess you see that too, right?
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I mean, I've had like some, some like youth
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Christian stuff that like is reminiscent but nowhere near it.
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But yeah, I think she did a good job of being like,
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we might think of this type of community as totally out there, but like,
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here are the connections to a coming of age.
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Like, you know, I think this is a really good
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coming of age story, too, because I think a lot of it
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is gems figuring out like what she has control over
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and making decisions for herself, which is very hard in her community.
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So there's that aspect that I really appreciated.
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I really appreciated little details
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of, you know, things being sinful. Right.
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So like every time I notice every time that gem was kind of either
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had just been thinking about own or
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had an interaction with own or experience,
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but then, you know, the next scene or two, she wasn't with him or something.
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She was eating junk food.
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She is like a constant, like it was almost like the junk food was like
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a replacement for her for sex spots and her like her bad thoughts.
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But she needed like, some kind of, like, you know, stimulation still.
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Yeah.
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And so, yeah, I found that really interesting that she,
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you know, she would be eating some kind of junk food if it was like,
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it was like Cheetos or donuts or really anything.
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And you could, you could tell that she would heavily rely
15:02
upon like something to eat if,
15:07
if she did have, if she had a
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sinful again in, quote, sinful thought or lustful thought.
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And so I thought that was a really great little detail
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to another thing that I think is just brilliant
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is the idea of gem
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goes into, I guess it's like a lake
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or a preserve, some kind of bayou type.
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Some kind of area.
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Yeah. Some kind of body of water.
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I mean, they're in Kentucky.
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They say they're in Kentucky.
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So like, I'm trying to think of like, what body of water
15:44
is in Kentucky that they could be in.
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But I like that she well, we'll talk about I'll touch on this briefly.
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And then I think we I do want to talk about the,
15:55
the sex scene or the first sex scene because there's something really,
15:59
you know, unnerving about it.
16:00
And I think it was handled really well.
16:02
But immediately when she feels like dirty,
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she goes to this body of water, this lake preserve, whatever it is
16:13
to, like, cleanse herself, you know, like she it's almost like she needs like,
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you know, the holy again, the holy water and putting in quotes,
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sort of things like the, the baptism right to free her of her her sins.
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And she, she does that twice.
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And it's kind of and we get the two very different
16:34
moments of, you know, when she does it after her one has sex with her,
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and then she does it again with the younger brother.
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So the younger brother named Billy. I think it's Ben.
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What's his name?
16:46
Ben. I'm like.
16:47
It's one that would make more sense then makes more sense in.
16:51
Yeah. He plays Ben Taylor, Austin Abrams.
16:54
I recognize him from a couple of things.
16:57
Actually.
16:58
This is such a tangent.
16:59
Oh, he was just in weapons.
17:01
Yeah, that's what happens.
17:03
Yeah, yeah. He's a druggie in weapons.
17:05
Yep. Okay.
17:06
So. Yeah.
17:07
So then the younger brother in the courting.
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So if you're listening to this and you did not watch this darling girl
17:13
just so you have and you're you are fine with spoilers.
17:17
This is just so you have an idea of what the hell is going on in the movie.
17:20
Ben, the younger brother of Owen, both pastor's
17:25
sons, is courting Eliza's Kaitlyn's character, Jim.
17:29
It's not really by her choice.
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It's kind of like a forced upon
17:32
her thing and like, courting, I guess is like dating, but not really.
17:36
It seems almost like a given that these two will wed after their quoting.
17:43
I guess we'll just keep saying courting.
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I keep putting things in quotes if you're just listening and not watching,
17:48
because I think that courting is such a weird.
17:52
It's a weird thing, but it seems like a
17:55
like I mean, it's
17:56
a good thing, like from a, but it's such a weird old timey
17:59
like thing that like, we know courting is courtship is meant for wedding somebody.
18:05
But anyway, she has this one scene where Owen
18:11
follows her into the water immediately after he has sex with her,
18:15
and I'm saying he has sex with her because I don't really think it's consensual.
18:18
And that's why, like, we can get into that aspect of it, right?
18:23
Owen follows her into the water afterwards
18:26
and she doesn't want to be touched.
18:28
She's like, kind of leave me alone.
18:29
But then she kind of gives in to him and goes, okay, you know, I do.
18:33
You know, I do want this kind of, I guess is a decision she comes to.
18:38
Right?
18:39
And then she does it again later on in the film for her.
18:43
She's I mean, they're not found out yet, but they're close to it, right.
18:47
Like owns like we got to stop this because, you know,
18:51
it's it's getting too close for comfort.
18:53
Now I think people are going to be.
18:55
No, your little sister knows like this is not good.
18:58
So he's ignoring her.
18:59
She kind of has a mental break, which who wouldn't?
19:01
After all the things that happened, the sequence of events that happened. So.
19:05
Many where where, like, dad's in a coma for taking too many pills
19:10
and his drinking problem and and Owen's now, you know, breaking up with her.
19:15
And she's forced to bring her younger siblings
19:19
to this church gathering when her father is.
19:23
We don't we don't know.
19:24
She doesn't know if her father is going to be waking up or not.
19:26
And like this responsibility to act like
19:28
it's all okay and go be a part of the community.
19:31
And that's like the second time that she runs into the water.
19:35
After Owen is dismissing her and Ben,
19:39
the younger brother, follows her in and tries to be like, it's okay.
19:43
Are you okay?
19:44
And this is like the change in the scene where
19:48
he thinks it's playful at first, right?
19:52
And then it's very clear that Jim is like, no, I'm not,
19:55
I'm not fucking playing around.
19:57
And like basically ducks his head under the water to almost drown him.
20:02
Right?
20:04
Yeah.
20:05
And I just really like that, that there's the early scene in the film
20:10
of with Owen
20:13
and then the later scene with Ben, and you could see like the change in like,
20:19
no, I'm not going to say yes to things that I'm not comfortable with anymore
20:23
or I'm not okay with this. Right.
20:25
So I just I really liked that kind of cyclical.
20:30
It's not cyclical.
20:31
I think that's not the right word I'm looking for.
20:34
It's a change from its using the same scene in different ways.
20:40
And I think that's brilliant.
20:42
Yeah.
20:42
I like in that scene to how it's all those things are happening.
20:47
She tries to talk to own and he's like get.
20:49
And she says something to about like my like she's trying
20:52
to tell him to about like like my dad might be dead.
20:56
You know like something she's reaching to him for comfort
20:58
and he like physically it was like, get away from me, you know?
21:01
And then the dance troupe comes in because that also her dad,
21:05
right beforehand, he knew that she had lied when she goes and she's with.
21:08
Oh, and and she has to hide
21:10
at his house in the bathtub, which is another terrible for.
21:14
Yes, very.
21:15
I was very much thinking, okay, the hands over the mouth to.
21:19
But her dad's like, no, forget about dance troupe.
21:23
So then she's there and then the dance troupe comes out
21:25
and she's watching them, and that's when she gets this
21:27
look on her face, and she marches off and runs into the water.
21:31
And she does keep saying like, no, I want to be alone.
21:34
I want to be alone. I want to be alone.
21:36
I think to I took that scene
21:40
because when the first one happens with Owen as well, like when she runs
21:43
off, it's when then it's like after he's had sex with her and then she's
21:48
kind of trying to climb on top of him and be like a little bit more, you know,
21:52
like maybe more of, like the aggressor trying to initiate something after.
21:57
And he he's like, oh, okay.
22:00
Like, you know, like, hold on.
22:01
You know, and then she gets this look on her face again.
22:04
And then she kind of storms out of the car.
22:06
So that I think it's also partially it's like she's feeling these intense emotions
22:11
and nobody's letting her feel them, like even in that moment, too.
22:15
And I think there's a lot of moments like that throughout the story.
22:18
I appreciate how she treats
22:21
the own
22:21
character, how we're supposed to receive him.
22:25
And that is one of those moments where I think it shows that he
22:31
where he's supposed to be different from everybody, and she thinks like, okay,
22:35
this is something just for me, and there's just someone who understands me,
22:39
but that in many ways he is like everybody still in the community
22:44
where she can't fully be herself or,
22:48
you know, like it's like, okay, like, calm down.
22:50
You know, like just in that moment where she, she's getting a little bit
22:53
like she's wants to like, you know, she's excited to be.
22:57
Hurt herself, control
22:58
something, have some controls, have like a decision made in this process.
23:02
Yeah. Well she's actually a part of it.
23:03
And she's just going along with him leading her.
23:07
And he's like, you know, like, just calm down, you know?
23:10
Or like, this is kind of like, okay, that's too much like,
23:12
let's just like sit here now and then with the dance troupe to like
23:15
when she sees them and everything's happening,
23:17
I feel like she's got all these emotions of, like, where she's just like,
23:20
I'm so sad and I'm so angry and I'm so scared
23:24
and everybody, I'm supposed to just act like none of this is actually happening.
23:28
And then, yeah, Ben is going to come chase after me.
23:31
Ben who I guess I'm supposed to marry, but I can't even talk to.
23:36
I can't even have, like, there's.
23:38
No connection there.
23:39
And then, like, yeah, it does show, too.
23:41
Like, even though they are the same age,
23:45
there's a huge maturity difference
23:48
between Jim and Ben, you know.
23:52
Yeah.
23:52
And I think that's another thing
23:53
that this I'll touch on this since we already touched on this,
23:57
I think that the filmmaker did a really good job of handling the sex scene.
24:03
And I think it makes it like if you had to, like, teach somebody like
24:08
what consent is, I would kind of show them
24:12
this scene where, like Jim says nothing.
24:16
The whole interaction happens, right?
24:18
They start kissing.
24:20
You can tell that she kind of doesn't really know what's going
24:23
on, I would assume, like she doesn't even know what's going on.
24:26
Even more, because of the the Christian fundamentalist background.
24:31
Yeah, she doesn't say anything.
24:34
Even, you know, when he
24:37
I guess he takes off her underwear and penetrates
24:41
and you can just tell that she's like, oh no, this is I don't like this.
24:44
You know, she's you could tell that her face is like, this is painful.
24:49
And I think that it's like a really good example of like,
24:53
this isn't consent, you know, especially him
24:56
being the older man and her being 17.
25:00
I think that right there kind of shows, you know, I don't know,
25:04
maybe somebody else could watch this with like less emotional intelligence
25:07
or something or less empathy and be like, well, she didn't say no.
25:12
But I think that this scene was a really good example of
25:15
like the difference between consent and no.
25:21
There was no like verbal like, yes, please do this.
25:24
Yeah, I, I think too, I as I was writing notes as I was watching
25:29
and I wrote something down that was just like, no, I don't like this.
25:34
No, he's bad.
25:35
Like he's just because I was watching it.
25:40
Not sure about like how this character is going to be portrayed.
25:43
And I feel like seen enough things by now.
25:46
Read some stuff.
25:47
I just read a book by Jeanette McCurdy that focus.
25:52
It's called Half His Age, and it focuses on a 17 year old and with her teacher.
25:57
And like, there's a lot in that book two about like, the power that she has
26:02
or how she, like, you know, goes after a relationship with him.
26:06
But I appreciated about that book.
26:08
And I think the same thing happened in year two where it's not like,
26:12
oh, okay, this is completely bad, you're completely good.
26:16
And but when I was watching this movie up
26:19
until that point, you know, like when Owen kissed her,
26:23
they're clearly getting closer together and you know that that's not right.
26:26
I wasn't feeling like, you know, like, oh, okay.
26:29
He's a predator, you know? Anything like that?
26:32
Yeah. No. You don't feel that way about.
26:34
Oh, and I think, yeah, she does like a good job about like.
26:37
No, like he's not an awful person and no, he's
26:42
I know he is I guess predatory in that scene.
26:47
But there are a lot of scenes where he's not and there's a lot of like,
26:50
yeah, I think she just handles like the, the nuances of being a person.
26:55
Well. Yeah.
26:58
And like, I don't I don't think Owen is terrible.
27:01
I think he is stunted,
27:04
mature, maturity wise.
27:05
I think we find out that, like being forced into an early marriage
27:10
when you don't know who you are and how to behave
27:14
is not helpful in your, like, maturation process.
27:19
You know, like, that's not a helpful thing.
27:21
Yeah.
27:22
To being, like, helping you process being eventually being an adult.
27:26
Because then, you know, there are times where Owen just,
27:30
like totally skirts responsibility all the time, right?
27:33
Like, so he clearly like has he's a bit stunted.
27:37
So yeah, I think that, you know, she does a good job of being like,
27:42
no, he's not terrible.
27:44
But at the same time he doesn't know how to take responsibility.
27:47
And he is a full grown man who knows to take her ability for his.
27:52
Actions or that I.
27:53
Also, I think then
27:58
she also does a really good job of putting you in gems perspective, because
28:02
in that scene where he has sex with her, like,
28:05
I think that moment where I was like, no, like, I don't, I don't like this.
28:09
I was kind of surprised, I think, along with her, because I
28:14
was surprised by how it kept going and how nothing was being set.
28:19
I didn't think that he was just going to be
28:23
that aggressive, and I don't know, I was expecting,
28:26
I think probably, maybe what she was expecting in her mind,
28:30
you know, like when she's thinking about and like you said, to like she doesn't
28:33
really probably know that much actually just about sex,
28:36
but that she maybe had a vision in her mind of what it would be like.
28:40
And then it's really just going very fast.
28:43
He's not checking in with her in a car in the dark.
28:45
And it's just it's probably not at all
28:50
what she would be able to verbalize
28:54
that she wanted or what she envisioned, where this whole relationship was leading.
28:58
And then once it does happen, then we get that scene
29:02
like where she does go into the water, and there are a lot of scenes like that
29:06
where I think then the filmmaker is making you aware of her age
29:10
without having to point it out too much, where it's just like, it's okay, you know?
29:15
Like whenever he does mess up, you know, where it's like, no, it's okay.
29:18
You know? Like where she wants to make him feel better.
29:21
She wants to be like, oh, okay.
29:22
And so she just goes along with it.
29:25
Which I think you're right that it's a great trajectory
29:28
by the end of the film that she's like, no, it's not okay.
29:31
I'm not going along with it.
29:32
And I will kill. I'll kill you.
29:35
Maybe. Actually.
29:38
Right.
29:39
And I think that she does a really good job.
29:43
This movie does a really good job of being on that precipice
29:48
of being a girl and not a not a woman.
29:53
Yet, you know, there are so many times where, like,
29:57
I know, growing up
29:59
just out of college or just, you know, senior year of high school and you're kind
30:04
of, yeah, you're going to be like, oh, you know, I can flirt.
30:07
I can make
30:10
these decisions, these actions that are
30:14
maybe more are bigger
30:18
than my age or older than I actually am.
30:21
And I pretend to be.
30:22
And I think that, like, kind of this film captures a lot of, like,
30:27
that weird in-between time where like, you feel confident enough
30:31
in, in your soon to be womanhood,
30:35
but you're not ready for it.
30:38
Like you're not ready to be a woman.
30:41
You are just a girl, no matter how much like you know, she
30:45
Jem would make certain decisions of like, oh, I am going to pursue him.
30:50
I am going to get into this relationship.
30:52
I am gonna be a part of this.
30:56
But a lot of the times it's like, yeah, but then you see like,
31:00
oh no, that was she's kind of almost confused about like,
31:04
I'm playing a role of I'm told that I'm a woman or I'm about to be a woman, right?
31:10
Yeah.
31:11
I take care of my younger siblings.
31:14
I am being courted. I'd like to wed.
31:17
You know, there's all these different things.
31:19
Like the responsibility, you know, she has with her mother.
31:23
Even the relationship she has with her mother
31:26
is a lot.
31:27
A lot of times it is peer to peer, almost, you know, like her mother expects her
31:30
to handle the problems of her father
31:34
as if she was a fully mature adult.
31:39
So. And then even
31:40
taking care of her father, noticing things that her father is doing
31:45
these all very adult things that are put on to her.
31:48
But then you see, with a lot of other things that she's like,
31:52
she's just a girl, right?
31:53
Like she cares about dance.
31:58
She she has crushes.
32:00
She's looking through her, you know, youth pastor, the, the, the book
32:05
that she gets from like, I think like her summer camp or something like that.
32:09
And she's like looking at his picture on picture as a youth pastor in it.
32:13
And like, that's a very girlish thing to do, you know, like,
32:17
you know, to pull up, like, their picture and, like, kind of crush on them.
32:19
Right?
32:20
I was like, things you do that you just don't do when you're older.
32:23
Like, even if you do have a crush when you're older, it's like, you're not.
32:26
I mean, I don't know, maybe it's different.
32:28
Maybe I am like, just am showing how I'm like, not with the like,
32:31
social media scene of like maybe like,
32:34
you know, looking them up on social.
32:37
I don't know if I was that way ever.
32:39
But yeah, like there's just like girlish things that she does.
32:44
Even like getting upset when Owen's wife, who is looking over the dance
32:49
troops routine because it has to be approved
32:51
by one of the old, one of the women in the community since they have no like
32:56
adult dance instructor, leader, and now gems take it upon herself to become it.
33:01
Or Owens told her she could be and
33:07
that like
33:08
the insult that she takes from her from Owens wife
33:13
kind of being like, no, that moves a little bit too individualistic or that,
33:17
and she doesn't take like the the critique very well.
33:20
She doesn't like that her performance is getting changed.
33:24
And I would say that that's a very, almost girlish reaction to like, yeah,
33:29
a lot of people will get their feelings hurt if their work is picked apart.
33:32
But like as an adult, you can kind of manage those emotions.
33:36
Right.
33:37
And Jem really can't, you know, she immediately goes out and keys.
33:43
Are the. Ones, the wife's car.
33:45
So and again,
33:48
like, yeah, that's just like the recklessness of youth, right?
33:51
Like the, the immediate I can't manage my emotions or my reactions.
33:56
I go do something stupid.
34:00
Yeah.
34:00
Not that I mean, the past.
34:03
The youth pastor's wife, always wife.
34:05
Like, she doesn't deserve any of this.
34:07
But I can tell you I don't like her.
34:09
But that's just that has nothing to do with, like, the character.
34:13
I just think that, like, we're probably made not to like her
34:17
because we're kind of in gems point of view here.
34:21
Yeah.
34:21
So yeah, it's that weird.
34:24
Like, I think that's what I like.
34:25
This movie handles like coming of age really well.
34:29
Yeah, I think also there's a line in there that she says sometimes like,
34:33
and I think it's, it's delivered
34:35
so well by Eliza Scanlan or just the way in that scene
34:39
where she's trying to keep it together and be like, okay, and be respectful.
34:42
But she's so furious and it's multilayered, obviously,
34:45
because one like her art is being criticized, but to
34:49
this is the wife of the man that she's saying in her mind that she's in trouble
34:53
is, yeah, that she is jealous and she just is upset about that too.
34:57
But she says, like, okay, I'll just kneel like the rest of you.
35:02
Like the way that she says it, like we'll like the rest of you then
35:06
because they're all looking up at her and that
35:09
that's something to that when she goes and she sees Owen, that he says.
35:14
That made me laugh, though, right away he's like, did you?
35:16
He misses.
35:18
And then the way she reacts to
35:20
which is very almost like, she's like, I'm sorry.
35:25
I'm really sorry.
35:26
You know, like and then they just kind of push through it.
35:29
But there were a lot of times in the movie where it
35:34
then suddenly made me uncomfortable when it was like, oh, okay.
35:37
She's so young, like she's so young.
35:40
And especially scene
35:44
like when she things are falling apart and he is like, we have to stop, you know,
35:49
and you see the pain in the way that Scanlan plays that too,
35:53
where you see that like she really, really believes to like in her mind.
35:58
And that that too, I think is because of that age
36:02
that if she was older, she wouldn't think like,
36:04
okay, this is meant to be, this is going to work out.
36:07
You know, like God wants us to be together,
36:12
that she really thinks that and she really thinks that.
36:15
He thinks that and is very genuinely surprised
36:19
that he's not just going to go tell everybody,
36:22
oh, we're in love and we're supposed to be together.
36:24
I'm not supposed to be with my wife, that she seems really surprised
36:28
and just genuinely hurt by that because she thought,
36:32
okay, we are on the same page with you were.
36:35
Yeah, we're in this together.
36:36
And it's and you know, it doesn't help that like yeah.
36:39
Oh and and I will say this was a very good performance by Lewis Pullman.
36:44
Like yeah I think when he's like trembling when shit's like hitting the fan.
36:50
Not that I've ever been in that kind of situation,
36:53
but you know, like there's that the nervousness of like,
36:56
I'll fuck like and you see his anxiety and he's like literally vibrating like he
37:01
his performance shows that he's vibrating basically with nerves.
37:05
But it also just shows like I don't know Lewis well, not Lewis.
37:11
Oh, and like, are you full of shit?
37:14
Because you did tell her, you know that.
37:17
You know, I think this is God's choice.
37:19
You know, basically that I shouldn't be with my wife.
37:22
You know, this is a sign.
37:24
This is also another thing that's like, side note,
37:28
Christianity is always whatever
37:30
people want it to be.
37:34
Like.
37:34
It just changes, like whenever, like.
37:37
And I do think that that was like a subtle undertone kind of throughout
37:43
the film is that it was really like whoever decided each character
37:47
had their own relationship with religion and what it meant,
37:52
where like gem kind of has this idea that like,
37:57
how could love be bad when like, Jesus is love and, you know, kind of like,
38:02
yeah, I guess it is like a younger ideal of it too, of like, oh, I love him.
38:07
How, you know, if I love somebody this much,
38:10
it must be God, you know, because that's what I've been taught.
38:13
God is love, right?
38:14
So, like, she kind of has a very pure,
38:18
even childlike way of thinking of her religion.
38:22
I would argue she is the healthiest view of her religion.
38:28
Of everyone in the film and.
38:31
Of everyone in the film.
38:32
Yeah.
38:33
So but but yeah.
38:37
So it's like Owen uses whatever he wants for his,
38:43
you know, chooses, however, to look at his,
38:45
however, to look at his version of Christianity that suits him.
38:49
Yeah. Same with the pastor.
38:51
Same with the mother.
38:52
Same with the father, same with Jem.
38:55
So this is just a funny note there that, you know, I think there is a
39:02
little bit of like, you know, religions, whatever you want it to be, sort of.
39:06
Yeah.
39:07
It changes. Yeah.
39:08
Throughout the, the movie that when it seems like
39:11
he wants to be justifying to himself into her,
39:14
this is okay, you know, because she's, she's the one that says to him
39:18
two, multiple times like, you're married, you know, like, what about your wife?
39:23
That making himself and her made me feel better about like, okay, but we're not.
39:27
So we don't even like each other, you know, and us watching it as an adult,
39:30
we're like, okay, so you don't like your wife doesn't mean, yeah.
39:35
Go sleep.
39:36
Like what?
39:36
Like arguably rape.
39:38
A. 17 year old. Yeah.
39:41
Yeah.
39:42
That it's clear that he has the power.
39:45
But when he says that in one scene and then, you know, later
39:48
when they're found out, his dad saying like, well, Owen says that, you know,
39:52
gem brought him to sin and then he he during the
39:57
when she used to tell everyone at church, he says that he forgives her
40:00
to, you know, like, and then she's so upset after that.
40:03
Yeah. That and he can't even. Look her in the I know. Yeah.
40:06
That's a rough moment where I'm like, that's a, that's a punch bowl.
40:09
You want to punch that guy in the moment.
40:11
But he also, like you mentioned before, he feels then very young.
40:14
Sometimes he feels younger than she is
40:18
just emotionally in that way where he then you see like
40:22
it's like, oh it's just another disappointing boy,
40:26
you know, that can't say actually how he feels
40:30
or stand up to his father or speak about
40:33
how his connection to his faith and that Jeremiah, the way
40:38
that she is connected to her faith to is she also, I think, through dance.
40:44
And that's definitely a big part of the movie.
40:47
That that is something that she's continually made to feel bad about.
40:51
And it's always about like, is it for God?
40:53
Is it for vanity?
40:55
Too much focus on the individual when misused, critiquing the dance like,
40:59
I know you didn't try and draw attention to your legs, but you know.
41:03
That was a wild that's like one of those things
41:05
where it's like, yeah, I did not grow up strict.
41:08
Christian. No, I. Felt the frustration while.
41:10
You know, in that scene because every time you could tell
41:12
that she was going to stop them and be like, okay, but this
41:15
and especially something where it's like dance as an art form,
41:19
like it is your body, it is you drawing attention to certain, like.
41:22
Right, the. Movement of your body.
41:24
So like when she's not able to do that too,
41:27
I think it's also she knows that like that's wrong.
41:31
I, I think a large part of that is like why she starts
41:34
maybe having thoughts of like, maybe this isn't right.
41:38
You know,
41:38
you can see her gears kind of turning sometimes of like, is this really like,
41:42
I'm not allowed to dance the way that I want to dance, you know?
41:46
And also that she's made to feel so shameful,
41:49
as if she's doing some kind of as like they treating her like
41:54
you can see her bra, or she moved her legs slightly while she's dancing,
41:57
like she's stripping in front of everybody,
41:59
you know, like it's just any little things, like
42:02
that's that level of intensity that maybe not everybody that comes to the film
42:05
has that, but definitely that feeling of being made
42:10
to feel ashamed and just bad too, about like what you want actually.
42:15
And you can tell that she really that's so important to her.
42:18
She wants to dance, that even when everything happens to her
42:23
terrible things in her life, getting that
42:26
taken away from her, it seems like, sends her kind of over the edge.
42:30
Yeah. For sure.
42:31
And then, yeah, you get these full circle details
42:34
making their way through the film, which I really appreciate, is,
42:38
you know, she when she's talking to her dad, you get you get the details of
42:42
oh he you know used to live a quote unquote, you know, simple life.
42:46
You know, before he individualistic life, before he turned to
42:51
Jesus and the Lord saved him.
42:52
And he was in a band
42:56
and he loved music and he but he only wrote songs about, like, his struggles.
43:00
And that was the problem. Right?
43:01
And, you know, she talks about a bar that he would play at with his band,
43:07
and we get the detail of like, he's kind of turned to drinking again or not.
43:11
Kind of.
43:11
He does turn to drinking again after one of his friends commit suicide.
43:17
An old friend, I think it was a bandmate
43:20
from his past commit suicide and that kind of unravels her father.
43:24
So she's kind of finding out through his drunken,
43:27
these drunken conversations with him
43:30
at night, in the wee hours, like when she's coming back from Owen.
43:34
That he's really struggling with
43:39
maybe his his choice in life, or maybe he just doesn't, you know,
43:43
we don't know exactly.
43:44
We don't get a lot, you know, from the father, but clearly he's
43:48
going over his past and reminiscing and thinking about it,
43:52
which leads her to question it and learn more about her father.
43:57
And then she kind of
43:57
has that connection with her father, you know, this, this art form
44:02
that she loves doing, but she can't really do it
44:05
the way she wants to do it because,
44:06
you know, it's she's not doing it the right way to praise God.
44:10
So but then we get the oh, there's so much to go through.
44:16
I don't want to go. I don't want to.
44:18
I have like the instinct to go chronologically,
44:21
but I think that's not valuable.
44:23
And in this review review.
44:25
So I apologize if I'm, I start jumping around a lot
44:29
where she finds her dad's iPod in his jacket that she brings with her
44:35
when, you know, she runs away with Owen for that brief moment
44:40
and she listens to one of his songs,
44:45
which Nicole actually looked up the which was smart of her.
44:49
That's why she's here.
44:51
The band who did the song that they used
44:54
that is supposed to be, you know, the father's band, ace up my sleeve song.
44:59
What's the name of that?
45:00
The band that they got to do. That Lord Huron. Okay.
45:03
And that sounds great.
45:04
I really I really enjoyed that song.
45:07
She kind of listens to it and it's like, I think it makes her feel
45:10
obviously connected to dad, but also like it makes her realize that she wants more.
45:15
And this kind of what the song is saying to that.
45:20
Like, I don't want to play the cards I've been dealt, you know,
45:23
I want to play a totally different game that I've been told I can play.
45:26
And that kind of then triggers her to be like, what am I doing?
45:31
Like running away with it? And yeah.
45:33
And then then it leads us to that, that circle moment
45:37
of being at the bar that her dad used to play at in Memphis,
45:42
and then finally getting to dance the way she wants to dance like she's
45:46
she has the freedom to do the routine that she was doing, you know,
45:51
that she wanted to do, basically, because you see those movements in there.
45:55
And I thought that was I really enjoyed the film,
45:59
the ability to lay out these little details
46:04
and then bring it all together,
46:05
you know, like they weren't just put there for no reason.
46:07
We come back to them. Yeah.
46:09
Even that something.
46:11
I didn't think we were going to return to that.
46:12
Like when she started driving to,
46:14
I thought she was going to go home or go see her dad at the hospital or.
46:18
That moment. Yeah.
46:19
So I really did think that was a great way to end the movie,
46:23
where she goes to that bar and she remembers
46:26
from when they talked about it, and he is drunk.
46:29
And I like that about those scenes to where, you know, he
46:34
he would realize if he wasn't in that way that she's been out.
46:39
Like, where has she been?
46:41
Even, you know,
46:42
like when he has that moment when he says he can't be a dance troupe
46:45
and he knows that she lied about where she was and he hits her.
46:48
You can tell when later, he apologizes before he odds that
46:54
really, his anger is probably coming from at himself
46:56
because he knows, like, I've not been your dad.
47:00
Like I haven't been here.
47:01
I haven't been watching out. So I don't know where you've been.
47:03
Actually, I like that
47:07
in their relationship.
47:10
That no matter what was going on, that
47:13
that was the person that she could go to for that art connection.
47:16
And he has that line in there where he says, if I ask you
47:20
to give something up so that you have more room for him,
47:23
that you have more room for God.
47:25
And I like that that too, where it's not like
47:30
you don't get that where he sticks up for her
47:32
or has a turnaround or is like, you know, you don't have to marry Ben.
47:35
Like,
47:36
you know, he just kind of goes along with it,
47:38
but you know, that he feels bad, like he's very he doesn't feel like right
47:42
about it, forcing her into something that she clearly does not want to do.
47:48
So his character to was just.
47:50
And I forget what his name Jimmy Simpson, I think maybe.
47:53
Yeah, he's great too.
47:55
Yeah.
47:56
Though he's from Westworld is what I recognize him from.
47:59
Yeah, I think that relationship was handled really well.
48:02
I mean, even like the mother daughter relationship, I think that this film is a
48:06
masterclass in character development or even like,
48:10
just like presenting well-rounded characters without us
48:13
really needing to know a whole lot about them, you know?
48:17
And they're not stereotypes, but like, it's just the film gives us everything
48:22
we need to know about the characters in in that small amount of time.
48:27
You know, it's she interacts with each I mean, even the mother,
48:30
we can kind of get a sense that, like, she's just trying to hold things together.
48:36
She's an email about the father have, you know, having a drinking problem again?
48:41
But then we do see moments of,
48:46
I'm just trying to protect my daughter.
48:48
There are moments that, like, I find the moment
48:52
really interesting about the mother is
48:55
when she's sitting with the pastor and gems getting reprimanded
49:00
for this relationship with Owen,
49:03
which meanwhile, like the pastor, will take no responsibility.
49:07
You know, like we said, for his son's action.
49:10
Like she, you know, she's the pastor saying
49:14
gems been seduced by the devil and having sinful thoughts
49:17
that is causing her to have this relationship with Owen.
49:20
And Owen was seduced by her sinful lusting after him.
49:25
Right.
49:26
So he won't take any responsibility for his son's behavior,
49:30
which is like ridiculous.
49:32
But we have that one instance where gems mother goes,
49:37
your son, you know, had something to do with it to.
49:40
I don't know the exact line, she says, but she she
49:43
slips into, you know, she slips it in that like,
49:46
Owen was a part of this as well, when all the blame is going to Jim.
49:51
And I thought that that was a really telling thing
49:53
that like, maybe there's there's hope for the mother.
49:58
Yeah.
49:59
Like that.
49:59
She just doesn't always just go along with the community, what they say.
50:04
Yeah.
50:04
And, you know, if you look into it a little bit more, you go,
50:07
oh, well, you know, maybe that makes sense.
50:09
She did fall for I mean, maybe he did turn to God
50:13
before they met the father and her.
50:16
But I think that that shows that this family
50:20
isn't really adhering to the society or they're not like
50:25
they're not enjoying every aspect of it, or not very good at adhering to this.
50:30
And that even reminds me of the detail of when the sister catches her.
50:36
Oh. Yeah, coming out of the window of the bedroom.
50:39
After nearly being caught at Owen's house,
50:43
she escapes through the bedroom window and her little sister is there.
50:47
And I love that moment where, like,
50:50
we pause, the camera pauses on
50:53
both of them for a bit of like, what are we going to do here?
50:57
It was like
50:59
it was like, oh shit.
51:00
Like, are you going to say anything?
51:04
Like it was both sisters kind of like looking back and forth
51:06
at each other, being like, what are we going to do?
51:09
Like decisions were going to have
51:11
to be made in that in those milliseconds, those seconds.
51:15
But I think that even tells you to that the little sister just doesn't
51:21
automatically go to rat out her big sister.
51:25
And, you know, maybe a lot of siblings would do that, but I'm not sure,
51:28
like maybe in this kind of community,
51:31
if she was already fully indoctrinated into the
51:35
this kind of way of thinking, she would immediately rat her sister out.
51:39
But I think that's telling of the family dynamic too.
51:43
Yeah, I like the detail to the when she asks to tell everybody at church like,
51:48
I'm sorry and I'm sinful and stuff and, you know,
51:51
he says, does anyone want to come up and offer her forgiveness like this?
51:54
Sister immediately makes a beeline and hugs
51:56
her and is like, I forgive you, you know?
51:57
And you can see in that the actress of the place is Sister Becca.
52:01
To do such a great job.
52:02
Like you can see that when they give shots of her
52:05
that it's it's hard for her to watch her sister be up there and is obviously, like,
52:09
so mortified.
52:10
So as soon as he says that, she just, like, runs to her right away
52:13
and it's like, I forgive you.
52:15
But yeah, it seems like everybody I mean,
52:18
with the dad too, and the like, it's the community.
52:21
It's not serving anybody
52:24
that it's with the mom and the dad too, that you can see, like
52:28
they're not able to communicate, I guess, in some kind of way.
52:32
Right.
52:33
The same way in a different but similar. How?
52:36
It's like Owen and his wife and he's like, we've never liked each other, you know,
52:41
that they were probably paired up young,
52:45
but they're not able to talk, really.
52:48
They're not able to be honest about things.
52:50
So everybody is just suffering in different ways and we don't know
52:55
what would have what happens after Jim maybe then
52:58
leaves the bar, but I do.
53:01
I would like to imagine that maybe eventually, like you're saying, like
53:04
maybe the whole family realize, like, this is just not good for us,
53:08
you know, like, we gotta we gotta figure something out.
53:11
But I love when her mom punched own in the face to.
53:14
That was a great yeah, I know that was not a smack I did.
53:17
Yeah. When she, like, just.
53:18
Clocks him that is it's I that was another like little detail of like.
53:24
Yeah you could have easily gone to the mother's maxim.
53:27
Right. Like yeah right. That would be the normal thing.
53:29
But she like it's a wind up full on and she does like.
53:33
Get away from her.
53:34
Yeah.
53:35
He's, she's bloodied him and he and she doesn't react in terms of like her.
53:42
She doesn't like shake her fists or anything like that.
53:44
She, you know, decks him and like goes after him.
53:48
And I think that that also just showed a little bit of like
53:52
the mother understanding that it wasn't Jim.
53:55
Yeah.
53:56
You know,
53:56
I think that was her kind of her way of being like, this isn't all your fault.
54:01
Even though she said some really awful, mean things to her daughter to start.
54:05
But I think there's like, underlying things there
54:08
that we see that the mother is a little bit more
54:12
empathetic or sympathetic to her daughter, then she lets on.
54:16
Yeah.
54:17
So and I guess that's another reason.
54:21
Reason why, you know, the film is titled The Starling Girl, right?
54:25
Like it's not it's not titled gem.
54:28
It's not titled Jim Starling.
54:30
That'll be a terrible title if you just used her name.
54:33
But but I think that I think
54:37
that it is supposed to kind of when you're, when you're using
54:43
a family's name
54:46
to associate with, like the one bad egg or whatever.
54:50
And I don't think it's supposed to show bad.
54:52
I think that, like in general, it just gives the family,
54:56
an outsider status already, you know, that they're
54:59
that they're using the family's last name to describe her
55:03
because I'm not sure if, like, she was, she was being good or being like
55:09
the ideal, whatever they wanted her to be, you'd be using the family's name.
55:13
I don't know, I'm just going on, like,
55:14
a little bit of my brain's kind of moving faster than my.
55:18
My thoughts are able to express about, like, that idea.
55:23
But I feel like when you're using a family's last name, it's usually like.
55:28
And you're specifying the one girl you're already kind of like,
55:31
oh, you know, the Starling family, you know?
55:35
Yeah.
55:35
Or put in my mind, like, you don't want to be like that, Starling.
55:37
Or it gave me that feeling of gossip.
55:40
Yeah.
55:41
And just attributing her to her family, again, to not to focus on the individual,
55:46
which comes up again and again in the movie, but her being defined by.
55:50
Yeah, her family that she's a member of the family, she's one of their girls.
55:55
So I think brilliant movie.
55:57
And then I guess to kind of end the discussion on it.
56:01
I know Nicole touched on it briefly about like,
56:04
we don't know what she's going to end up doing.
56:06
Were you surprised that Owen comes back?
56:10
Yes, I come. To get.
56:12
That was that was a surprising turn of events.
56:15
For me. I was like, I was not expecting. It, I wasn't.
56:17
I know how she. Was going to get out of the camp thing.
56:20
Going to the camp?
56:21
No, I didn't expect him to come back.
56:23
And then after the mom punched him, like, I don't think I expect
56:26
to her necessarily to then jump in the car with him.
56:30
With him. Yeah.
56:30
And then she's so excited, but I did.
56:33
That works very beautifully then to transition into
56:36
when she realizes, like, I don't think I want this either.
56:38
You know, when she prays again and she's like,
56:40
just let me be content, you know, like, I just can't even be happy. But
56:43
you can see, like, she just, she realizes, like, this is just not what I want.
56:48
But the fact that he does come back, it was very, very surprising.
56:53
Yeah.
56:54
I thought he had totally been like, I got I got caught
56:58
not going to take responsibility for my actions now.
57:00
And yeah.
57:02
And I'm going to, you know, pretend like this was never my idea and I never
57:06
really had anything to do with it.
57:08
And I'm a golden boy, you know, I really didn't think again,
57:12
I think it makes Owen's character a little bit more sympathetic, you know?
57:17
Yeah. He's not a total monster.
57:18
He's not like,
57:19
oh, well, I just got the sex that I wanted from
57:21
this girl, and I have no feelings about what I did.
57:25
Yeah, I.
57:26
Think I do think he works that tightrope.
57:29
He does.
57:29
I mean, I think it's also that he he says, you know, that he can't lose her.
57:35
Like he says, like, you know, like you're
57:36
the only one that sees me that that's a big part of it, too.
57:40
Like that.
57:40
Genuinely, both of them feel stifled in the community,
57:44
and they don't feel like they can be there.
57:47
So that I do believe,
57:49
like when I'm watching the movie, that he can let his guard down and be himself,
57:52
but he's also being selfish in that way
57:55
where he's not thinking about what probably is best for her.
57:59
Right? No.
58:00
And there's there's one moment too, that really stuck in my head.
58:06
It speaks to her age, but also is just like one of those moments
58:09
where it seems like she's kind of like, like,
58:12
okay, I don't want you to then just have me be what you want me to be.
58:16
You know, he's like, well, you could live anywhere in the whole world.
58:18
And she's like, I like Kentucky.
58:19
Like, I like my sisters in the forest.
58:22
And he kind of laughs and he's like,
58:23
you just have no idea what you're talking about.
58:24
And you can kind of see in her face, you know, that, like just, you know.
58:29
But then also we get from his perspective, we're like, yeah.
58:31
Like, well, she's never been anywhere, you know,
58:32
like that again to where it's like, okay, well what do you want her to say?
58:35
Like she's 17 and you know where she lives.
58:38
Like,
58:40
you know a lot of things.
58:42
But I agree that I think that
58:44
it really would have been easy to make a one full tilt, like,
58:48
just kind of leave that character and he leaves her in the lurch,
58:53
but he does come back, and then he does seem like he's the kind of committed,
58:56
at least in that moment, to the plan that he's going to sell the car
58:59
and they're going to go off, and that she doesn't want to do that.
59:03
And it's another moment again, where I feel like it is kind of similar to like
59:07
we see the same sort of scene in different ways that it used to be
59:11
that she sneak out
59:12
in the middle of the night to go see him, and then I like
59:14
how she sneaks out to get away from him, that she sneaks away
59:17
in the middle of the night and gets the keys and leaves him.
59:20
Right.
59:20
And yeah, that we don't
59:21
we don't know if she leaves the bar, if she'll go back to him,
59:24
go run away with him, if she'll go home, if she goes home, then
59:28
if she has to go to that camp, what her mother's going to say.
59:31
Like.
59:33
But I
59:34
think that when I do envision it, it's that even if she does eventually end up
59:38
going back there, that she, through these experiences, has had that moment
59:43
of realizing, like, I don't think that this is the rest of my life.
59:48
I don't think this is the way that I want to also practice my faith
59:52
and definitely like ending it in that scene of appreciating, like, I am
59:57
at this bar where my dad was himself practicing his art,
1:00:01
and now I am dancing exactly who I want to with no one telling me how to.
1:00:06
That it is like a hopeful it does leave you place,
1:00:10
even though you're like
1:00:11
you still got to deal with all these things, but after that, you know,
1:00:14
but that she is just so at peace, that you feel genuinely happy for her.
1:00:18
And yeah, and she's definitely learned something, you know, like she knows
1:00:22
she's taken more control of of the decisions
1:00:27
that she's going to make going forward and what she wants.
1:00:29
So yeah, really lovely film, man.
1:00:33
I think it deserves a hell of a lot more talking credit than I mean,
1:00:38
I guess it was a little darling at the festivals,
1:00:41
but it's just a shame that not a lot of people have seen this
1:00:45
and it's just been, you know, it's an on Netflix.
1:00:47
So if you haven't seen it, I know it's ridiculous to say after this,
1:00:51
you know, hour long conversation.
1:00:53
And if you're into while listening to just spoilers and then watching a movie.
1:00:58
Yeah, I think, but I think if you did watch it
1:01:01
and you listen to this conversation, I'm hoping that you kind of listener out
1:01:06
there had the same kind of feeling and feelings about it.
1:01:09
And I'd be excited to see this filmmaker, Laurel permit do more.
1:01:14
I would love to see more of her.
1:01:15
I think she was very efficient in her vision, and I don't I just like
1:01:19
I don't know, I don't see I don't see that, you know, I don't see
1:01:23
that all the time where, you know, I just very like, commend her.
1:01:28
I'm I'm jealous. I'm envious.
1:01:30
I don't know if I could have told that story with that much precision.
1:01:34
Yeah.
1:01:34
No, there were just so many times where I was like, that's I would, like,
1:01:37
pause the movie and be like, oh, that's really smart, that's clever.
1:01:40
And I had that thought that you were saying
1:01:41
where I'm like, I wouldn't have thought about that.
1:01:43
You know, like, that's just such a perfect way.
1:01:45
A lot of two visual shorthand that she's able to accomplish,
1:01:48
to give you the information and make you feel something
1:01:52
without having to rely on dialog
1:01:56
and without having to hold your hand to heavily.
1:01:58
So, yeah. Well, that's another thing.
1:02:01
There's not a whole lot of yeah, there is not a whole lot of dialog.
1:02:05
It's not like we're getting like a voice voiceover monologues.
1:02:09
I mean, like with the brief instances that we do, it's, it's gem praying.
1:02:14
But again, that's not like explaining what's going on.
1:02:19
Yeah.
1:02:21
So yeah. No.
1:02:22
Loved it. And this was a great conversation.
1:02:24
I think also, that's why I like talking about movies
1:02:27
is because you both realized things or you're having a conversation.
1:02:31
We all realize kind of things that we didn't realize
1:02:35
or we can like explore that more.
1:02:39
And also really nerdy thing to say, I love having a discourse about.
1:02:43
I love talking about films.
1:02:47
We do though.
1:02:50
Yeah.
1:02:50
Well, thanks everybody so much for listening.
1:02:54
If you made it all the way through, I really appreciate it.
1:02:57
Obviously.
1:02:58
Stay tuned for more episodes.
1:03:01
This is.
1:03:02
I know that we did a bunch of new releases for some of our early episodes,
1:03:05
earlier episodes, but I'm definitely going to pull up some older, older films.
1:03:10
And this is an older film, but I want to really want to make sure
1:03:15
that I showcase these films
1:03:17
that might have come out a few years ago or even decades ago that we
1:03:21
that are available to watch now and that I think are absolutely worth the time.
1:03:25
So thanks again and I will see you real soon.
1:03:29
Bye bye.