Grab your thick rimmed glasses, a nice button up cardigan, some fancy socks, and get ready to sing and dance your butt off.
God Help the Girl is the feature debut from Belle & Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch. Clearly a passion project for Murdoch, his debut film is all about youthful energy and pure emotion. God Help the Girl begins with the escape of Eve (Emily Browning), who is being kept in a mental health facility due to an eating disorder. Upon freeing herself, she soon meets up with the dorky, yet loveable, James (Olly Murdoch), who is an exceptional musician as well as a pool lifeguard. As James swoons over Eve’s songwriting capabilities, he allows her to shack up in an available room at his place. Eve and James complete their freewheeling love trio when they decide to form a band with the ditzy Cassie (Hannah Murray, paying tribute to her Skins character of the same name), who is the “kind of, sort of” musician type.
From there, we have our film. The three young stars begin to run about Glasgow singing, dancing, ranting and learning about life. There are quite a few moments in the film that are just quiet interactions between the trio, which are always a joy to watch. The chemistry between the three actors makes the film much more enjoyable, and one can easily tell that these three share an immense love for Murdoch’s material. The script is well written, and we are treated to some stylish shots, but what Murdoch has really created here is an outlet for some incredibly memorable songs. From the great opening tune to the larger, epic ones, Murdoch’s music is great all around and serves as the bulk of this film’s appeal.
The script is well written, and we are treated to some stylish shots, but what Murdoch has really created here is an outlet for some incredibly memorable songs.
The choreography in the film seems a bit plain at first, but after a while, it seems fittingly so. It doesn’t distract from the music nor the intimacy of the characters. More positives that the film has to offer: the set design and wonderful wardrobe design. Although undeniably hipster, the wardrobe feels genuine, and not cheap. The general film aesthetic feels like the love child of Wes Anderson and Zooey Deschanel, in the best way possible. Murdoch also throws in some clever winks to The Beatles as well as A Hard Day’s Night.
God Help the Girl knows where its strengths lie: within the music and cast. Unlike other musicals such as Across the Universe that focus more on visual cues that melt and blend together with the music, God Help the Girl is mostly significant in that it features Murdoch’s classy tunes. It doesn’t try too hard, it doesn’t delve too far into its own quirkiness, which many films with this aesthetic mistakenly do. Murdoch knows when to be serious and when to be silly, and also how the two can, at times, sit side by side. God Help the Girl succeeds in almost every goal it attempts to achieve.
Murdoch’s debut is fantastical and whimsical. It’s a light-hearted and warm film that proves itself with talented songwriting by Murdoch and a great cast that obviously cared dearly for the film’s heart and soul, which is often hard to find.
