Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Girl’ on Hulu, Where Bella Thorne’s Small Town Tormentors Include Mickey Rourke

Girl , written and directed by actor Chad Faust in his full-length debut, tells its tale of hard knock lives in a backwater burg through the prism of one extended family’s litany of lies. It falls on the titular character, played with gusto by Bella Thorne, to find her truth by whatever means necessary.

GIRL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: When the protagonist known only as Girl (Bella Thorne) arrives in the town of her birth via intercity bus, it’s with her trademark curled lip in place and only one small piece of carry-on luggage. And while that hatchet in her haversack is significant, it isn’t her only baggage. She’s traveled here with a job to do, as she sees it, and dials a number on her flip phone. “I’ll make it so you can sleep again at night,” she tells her mother (Elizabeth Saunders), and goes in search of her deadbeat dad. This town is nearly abandoned, more dead than alive, emptied of inhabitants but for the downtrodden, the left behind, the perennial fuck-ups. But it’s also home to Sheriff (Mickey Rourke) and his half-sibling Charmer (Chad Faust, who also writes and directs), known collectively and fearfully around these parts as “the brothers.” And Girl’s arrival doesn’t escape their leering gaze.

Girl seeks vengeance on a father who abandoned his family, but she’s far too late for any of that. The dingy cocktail lounge she visits doesn’t have any answers, though there are plenty of eyes on her who seem to know what her plan is. And when Charmer finally confronts her, it’s with threatening, cajoling hubris, because he knows he’s protected. Girl then gets into a game of cat-and-mouse with the sociopathic Charmer and his sinister lawman brother that’s bound to end badly, and not just because of the hatchet she keeps at the ready. For Golden, after all, is a town where things end badly so the whole busted cycle can just crank itself up again. Blood is spilled, and so are secrets, and Girl’s either gotta find the truth about her family’s history in Golden, or at least stay alive until the intercity bus rolls back into town.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Told on a similar scale, but with more edge and storytelling thrust, Jeremy Saulnier’s 2013 thriller Blue Ruin wove together revenge, family secrets, and sharp notes of violence. And the alienation and hostility Girl encounters upon her arrival in Golden, as well as its cast of characters representing archetypes without proper nouns, recalls Dead Man, Jim Jarmusch’s loopy, dissonant western from 1995.

Performance Worth Watching: Girl is Thorne’s film through and through — it rides high on her energy, requires it to keep its faltering moments afloat. But appearing in a fine supporting role is Canadian actor Glen Gould, who is a stolid presence as Barkeep, the last honest proprietor in a town gone to hell.

Memorable Dialogue: Girl, preyed upon by “the brothers,” Sheriff and Charmer, the town’s self-appointed honchos, and growing increasingly frustrated with the surly status quo in Golden, grouses about trying to figure out what’s going on to Barkeep, her wary ally. “The one time I knew what was goin’ on, I lost my toes,” he says ruefully. “That’s the brothers. Knowing and not knowing don’t mean a damn thing. There’s havin’ toes, and not havin’ toes.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Girl has real strength at its center thanks to Bella Thorne, who keeps her character in snarl mode until it’s time to strike. In one particularly strong sequence, she squares off with Charmer in a laundromat, the two flirting even as undercurrents of dread and the barely contained promise of physical violence reflect off the industrial chrome and linoleum. Thorne is a game physical actor, delivering throat punches, leaping, running, and hurling an axe. But she makes Girl whole even in the film’s stretches of standard exposition. This is a woman who grew up angry, grabbing what she could from the world, and Thorne has her nailed down to the scowl and gait.

Unfortunately, Chad Faust’s film can’t sustain its momentum around Thorne’s fine work in the lead role. It can’t even bestow her with a personal name, which starts to pick at you as she becomes more and more of a person. It’s true that the surrounding cast is also tasked with representing archetypes — Barkeep, Town Fuckup, Sheriff. But as Girl starts to slide toward its series of expository reveals, it hasn’t supported its archetypal figures with enough structure to shore up its story. The plotting becomes as dilapidated as the corrugate garage in which Mickey Rourke’s Sheriff tries to torture Girl. And speaking of Rourke, who these days looks like he’s wearing a mask made in the likeness of Mickey Rourke, his mushmouthed grumbles and chrome-plated revolver don’t add up to much character. (Faust himself, as the grinning sociopath Charmer, is the more interesting baddie, somehow infusing a white denim vest with menace.) Girl gets a lot of value from Thorne’s committed performance. But it fails her in its plotting and storytelling thrust.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Girl can’t nail down the larger lessons in its tale of chronic small town woe. But Bella Thorne delivers a performance full of grit, unvarnished emotion, and commanding physical presence.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges

Watch Girl on Hulu