for the first reel of girls town , you just ca n't get over lili taylor .
is it possible to remain unperturbed that a woman of this age is playing a high school student ? harder still , can you avoid astonishment at how perfect she is in the part ? with the sure , showy expertise of a de niro , taylor imbues unwed mother patti with all the faux fuck - you confidence she can muster .
it 's a deeply felt , dead - on performance , and by the halfway point you 've forgiven taylor her own maturity .
for all its verite pretenses , girls town is less about a bunch of high - schoolers than it is about a movie director and a cadre of writer - performers examining their own feelings about rape , relationships , and american womanhood .
the movie 's opening scenes sketch an easy friendship between a group of four smart / sassy high school outsiders on the verge of graduation :
patti , angela ( bruklin harris ) , emma ( anna grace ) , and nikki ( aunjanue ellis ) .
but about 10 minutes into the film , we get word that nikki has swallowed a fistful of pills and bowed out of life .
the remaining girls manage to smug nikki 's diary out of her grieving mother 's home , and page through it at patti 's place , investigating the root of nikki 's despair .
what they find is cruel and galvanizing -- nikki had been raped by an editor at a newspaper where she interned , and was privately questioning the sanity and value of a world where such a thing could happen .
shell - shocked by the truth of the matter , the three girls begin to talk among themselves and come to a realization about their own lives .
emma says she was raped last year on a date with a football player .
patti 's barely sympathetic , wondering what the hell emma thought she was doing with her shirt off in a jock 's car .
and anyway , patti 's had her own share of guys who would n't take no for an answer .
pained , acrimonious debate ensues as the trio grow more and more angry -- angry about the impossibility of saying no , and angry with themselves for being weak , for being naive , for putting up with it .
"
why do we put up with it ?
" emma finally asks , once the argument has reached a fever pitch .
"
we try to talk about it , and look what happens .
we fight for 20 minutes .
"
there 's the admirable crux of this picture .
girls town is a political film , in that it calls for action .
but it 's incomplete -
it 's never quite sure how to justify that action , or what form it should take .
the trio become crusaders for their right to dignity , and it 's surely one of this year 's most stirring movie moments when emma lobs a concrete block through the passenger - side window of that damn jock 's car ( doing the right thing ? ) .
they hang out in the bathroom , chatting incessantly and scrawling slogans and naming names on the door to a toilet stall .
" subvert the patriarchy , " emma writes , and then starts a hall of shame list underneath that other students begin to contribute to .
the girls silence their hecklers , take revenge on the deadbeat father of patti 's child , and eventually come face - to - face with nikki 's tormentor .
still , the movie has a desperately unfinished quality , and none of these subsequent exploits is particularly satisfying .
( you keep waiting for someone to call the cops on these brazen girls , but nobody thinks of it . )
perhaps searching for a resolution missing from the material at hand , the film borrows its epigraphs from audre lorde and queen latifah ( " who you callin ' a bitch ? " ) .
the points are well taken , but they should have been unnecessary .
long on characterization but a little short on story , girls town is less than it could have been , and too self - congratulatory for my own taste .
director jim mckay is best known as a consort of r .
e . m .
's
michael stipe ( he directed the nearly unwatchable tourfilm for that band ) , and girls town is his first foray into feature filmmaking .
the movie was created and scripted by committee , but mckay and his lead performers had to shoot on a shoestring when , predictably , the group could n't secure funding .
then again , girls town on a budget would hardly be the same film .
the movie 's slapdash quality is key to its significance .
truth be told , all three of the leads look too wise for high school , but that 's ok
-- there 's a once - removed quality to their fine , spontaneous performances , as the women take a very skillful look back at the girls they once were , the girls they wish they had been , or some combination .
for all its flaws , this one gets extra points for having its uncertain head and heart in the same noble place .
admirable crux fine , spontaneous performances a deeply felt , dead - on performance this one gets extra points for having its uncertain head and heart in the same noble place