it sucked.
So, Netflix really, REALLY fucked the marketing for this movie, lmao. This film is not about "a young girl finding her sexuality". This film is not about "a young girl going against her conservative Muslim parents".
No. This is a really basic mediocre movie about "new girl tries to fit in, gets caught with the wrong group, the wrong group drags her to greater extremes than even the group themselves, thus abandoning her initial beliefs she grew into". The main character is kind of a fucking blank slate asshole, desu. Obviously, the environment that she put herself in forced her to be that way, but she's not really a relatable or developed character. There's no sense of humanity within her. She's just some little girl and that's it and we're just supposed to see the events that she goes through that sort of make her devolve into this bitchy sorta character, even bitchier than the people she's inspired to fit in with. There's not even a sense of her getting some sort of repercussions for her actions throughout the film (she gets shouted at and prayed for ONCE), especially ones that probably would've, in the normal circumstances WOULD'VE, like her being 11 and posting a picture of her fucking PUSSY ON HER ONLINE PROFILE and the students know about this shit, yet no one reported about it and told the authorities? I find that proposition to be highly unlikely. That puts a big hole in the suspension of disbelief in the film and not just the film saying that 11-year-olds acting this way which even if you take the hypothetical that OHHH THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A HYPOTHETICAL IMAGINING OF A WORLD IN WHICH 11-YEAR-OLDS ACT LIKE THIS WHEN TEENS ALREADY DO, it doesn't work, because this girl would've been fucking investigated for that child porn shit.
The cinematography of the film is so damn mediocre and shit. It's obvious that the way the story is told that they think the sexualization shit is bad, but the way they film it doesn't make it seem bad. In fact, they fucking glamorize it and shit. The way they filmed it doesn't really portray it in a tone that seems bad, it's just like ok, it's a thing that exists. The cinematography doesn't show that nor is it really acknowledged by much of the characters. There's no scenes that aim to make a commentary on this particular contest or how people get accepted into it or how these girls became dancers or whatever. No development (although there is tell not show of "OH I WAS DANCING SINCE I WAS YOUNG"), it's just a contest that exists in terms of the plot and we're just like "ok that happens". Like this whole movie is just like "ok that happens" and really we're just supposed to accept it because of DOWNWARDS SPIRAL DOWNWARDS SPIRAL. They don't convey any messages subtly or convey tone, it's just THERE and we're supposed to accept that it's THERE for the purpose of the story. I understand that the reason that they did this was that the film is from the POV of the main character, but making your movie from the POV of the main character is retarded within itself because it severely limits the overall message that the movie could try to make because the view of it is only through the girl and not through anyone else's viewpoint. It weakens the message because we don't see the other side of it all, how bad it really is for these girls, we just see it through the social pressures of the main girl and shit in the most basic way possible. The way that they told the story is so narrow.
The ending of the film (and frankly the second half where shit just kind of falls apart and starts to not make sense with the whole porn thing) is fucking awful. Like, we're at the whole dance competition and they're doing the twerking and shit and then all of a sudden she cries when she's suddenly reminded of how bad that shit is. And then she goes back to her family and shit and after a scene of her grandmother berating her, boom she's back to normal, and happy again. PLAYING JUMP ROPE WITH HER FRIENDS. WEEEEEEEEEE! Now she's fine. After all of the events of the film, a great big ol' slap of the face.
So, 2/10. I see a lot of missed potential with this movie on how it could've interpreted its message, but it really floundered. Definitely not one of the worst movies I've seen, but it's still a bad movie and it's one of the laziest and predictable ones I've seen in quite a while too.
