Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Stargirl’ On Disney+, A Film About A Teen Who Finds Himself Again Thanks To A Unique Girl

At some point in the past ten years, the plot where a girl or young woman brings some dull guy out of his shell, while having no independent personality of her own, fell out of favor with filmmakers. But there’s a reason why people like that plot; it’s pure fantasy escapism. So, if you’re stuck in the house with your teens or preteens, why not fire up Disney+ and press “play” on Stargirl?

STARGIRL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: After the death of his father, Leo Borlock (Graham Verchere) and his mother Gloria (Darby Stanchfield) move to Micah, Arizona, a town where Leo says “nothing ever happened.” The high school football team always lost. The marching band is bad. The trophy case was empty. When he first went to school, he wore his dad’s old tie with a porcupine on it, as a way to keep his late dad close. But when two bullies beat him unconscious and cut the tie in half, he decided that the best thing to do would be to completely blend in.

Starting on his 9th birthday, every year someone would leave him a colorful tie in a hand-decorated box, and he had no idea who was doing it. On his first day of junior year, Leo sees an interesting girl in a colorful outfit walk by. He finds out that her name is Stargirl Caraway (Grace VanderWaal)… yes, her name is Stargirl. He’s intrigued by her individuality, her sparkly colorful outfits, and the fact that she’s bold enough to play her ukulele and sing with her ethereal voice in the middle of the cafeteria. He’s especially shocked when she not only knows his name, but his birthday.

His best friend Kevin Singh (Karan Brar) encourages Leo to ask her out, but he keeps his distance, even as he follows her into the desert as she walks to her home. But after she busts into the football halftime to play “Be True To Your School” on her ukulele, and the team wins for the first time in years, he finally talks to her. The next day, with Stargirl’s popularity growing as the school’s “good luck charm”, he follows her all the way there, and she is as unique as he thought.

They hang out together a lot, including a walk into the desert where she encourages him to scream out for no reason other than to just the feeling of it. She also shows him how she clears her mind and just tries to be one with nature. After she introduces him to her costume-designer mom, she kisses him. They have a whirlwind relationship, but she still won’t go on Hot Seat, the TV show Leo and Kevin produce for the school TV station. He still doesn’t know a lot about her and why she’s there; she finds out from his mentor Archie Brubaker (Giancarlo Esposito) that she was home schooled for years and came to his camp when Leo wasn’t around.

As Stargirl’s halftime routine gets more elaborate, including the cheerleaders and marching band, the football team keeps winning. When they get to the championship game, Stargirl accompanies the rival quarterback to the hospital when he gets injured, figuring he was alone and needed someone to be with him. Because the school lost, she suddenly becomes persona non grata, and when she finally goes on Hot Seat, she’s called out by Mallory Stillwell (Artemis) for purchasing the bike her brother had an accident on and giving it back to him; she felt that Stargirl had no idea how much pain the return of the bike meant to her family.

Stargirl decides to go by her given name, Susan, and dress like everyone else. She even changes the speech she’s making at the state public speaking finals. But how long will she stay away from embracing herself, and which version of Stargirl does Leo like? And, ultimately: Did she even exist?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Stargirl is more or less a teen version of the “manic pixie dream girl” film (I wish I could use another phrase, but Nathan Rabin nailed it when he came up with that term). Think Elizabethtown, (500) Days Of Summer, Garden State, etc. Only this version of the dream girl might have actually been a dream.

Performance Worth Watching: Grace VanderWaal is more known as a singer, and her voice is indeed ethereal. But she does a fine job of playing Stargirl as a twee symbol of Leo’s repressed personality while grounding her in some sort of reality. There are moments where you believe a girl like Stargirl can exist in the world, and that’s thanks to VanderWaal playing her for (mostly) real. And in the scenes where she’s become Susan, a girl who has a phone an dresses in “normal” clothes, you can see her discomfort with tamping down her personality to fit in.

Memorable Dialogue: Stargirl, to Leo: “Imagine if you were walking along, and a sign declared ‘ENCHANTED SITE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR.'” Leo responds: “They should put one at your house.”

Single Best Shot: In the same scene ad the memorable quote, Stargirl and Leo climb a rock and look at a spectacular desert scene at twilight.

Sex and Skin: Nothing.

Our Take: Stargirl was adapted by Kristin Hahn and Jordan Horowitz from Jerry Spinelli’s young adult novel. Director Julia Hart has taken care to give the movie a visual palate that’s mostly warm and inviting, and the way she has imagined Stargirl makes her a fantasy and reality at the same time. For the most part, though, the movie is a fairly light, mostly pleasant look at a teenager trying to find himself again after his father’s death. We’ve seen the formula before many times, but this version of it is so calm and soothing that the familiarity of the plot doesn’t seem to bother us much.

One of the things that enhances the movie are the musical performances from VanderWaal and, later, Verchere. Rather than slow the pace of the movie, they all bring up the energy a notch. Especially gratifying is how The Cars’ “Just What I Needed” is threaded through the second half of the film, bringing about a climactic moment that was somewhat predictable but fun to watch nevertheless.

We wish some of the supporting characters could have been given a little more to do. A moment when Leo’s mother laughs at Stargirl’s name seemed to be a bit of a shallow shortcut, for instance. And, while Kevin gets a lot of screen time, the other two members of their friend group don’t. Tess Reed (Annacheska Brown) looks like an interesting character, but all she does is take pictures for the yearbook. And Benny Burrito (Colin Blackford)… well, he just obsesses over the quality of the burritos at school.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Stargirl is a pleasant way to spend 102 minutes with your teen or preteen, and even though it treads some well-worn storytelling ground, it’s moves nicely and has some compelling performances.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Stargirl On Disney+