Laurel Parmet's "The Starling Girl" tells a story as old as time: the outlines of her story about the affair between a naive teenager and an older married man who swears he'll let his wife adhere to convention from beginning to end. end. — but the power of this sensitive and devilishly detailed coming-of-age drama is rooted in the friction it finds between biblical paternalism and the modern personality. While young women have always been taught to be ashamed of their desires (good idea!), Parmet's confident debut is extraordinarily well in tune with how distorted that gospel can sound to a God-loving girl who has been raised amid the echoes of a secular culture.
Played by the always flashy Eliza Scanlen, Jem Starling isn't the first Christian fundamentalist to feel an unholy shudder in her bones when she sees her youth pastor, but this Kentucky protégé is one of the first generations of her protégés. . community that grew up with (limited) access to the Internet. Digital technology rarely influences the action of Parmet's script, but its influence grows along the periphery like weeds around the Garden of Eden. An opening moment in the film highlights a boy who was sent into "retirement" after his parents catch him looking at pornography on his computer, and it's clear that Jem, whose greatest mortal pleasure is leading his church dance troupe. You've probably watched a few YouTube videos for inspiration over the years.
Director: Laurel Parmet
Writer: Laurel Parmet
Stars: Eliza Scanlen, Lewis Pullman, Jimmi Simpson
If you'd ever thought to look for them there, you might have stumbled upon some old clips of your merry father (an excellent Jimmi Simpson), a recovering alcoholic who nurtured dreams of being a rock star in his previous life and now spends his nights going back. sneak into your iPod as sneakily as you might hide a can of beer. Paul begins to spiral down after learning of the death of his former bandmate, that B-plot that serves as a poignant reminder of the life that Jem's community forbids its members. "When God asks you to give something up, it's only so you can have more space for it," Paul tells his daughter in his backyard one night, but his voice betrays a sacrifice that feels so much bigger. that your faith .
Jem, on the other hand, is growing old in her self-sacrifice. One look at bad boy Pastor Owen, just back from a mission trip to Puerto Rico and ready to embrace his destiny as a Jesus-loving Jess Mariano, and Jess can't help but touch herself under the covers at night. Played by "Top Gun: Maverick" star Lewis Pullman, whose nuanced and utterly convincing performance depends on a predatory appeal that couldn't be further from the nerdy side roles he's played thus far, Owen commands a godlike respect that he disguises. his own susceptibility to temptation.
There's nothing novel in the least about how Jem and Owen begin to orbit each other, but she's too young to see the clichés piling up around her, and he's too busy exploiting those clichés to care about her. . Jem's nearsightedness can also be forgiven because Parmet performs the usual rhythms with the same blushing immediacy that Scanlen brings to each scene.
The moment Owen makes Jem spit the gum into his hand, they both nail the power dynamic between them, and also the pleasure they take in perverting him (a pleasure Jem later uses to reverse that power dynamic as the movie enters). in his second act in layers). We recognize abuse in action, but how is a girl like Jem, who was raised to believe that enjoying dancing is sinful, supposed to understand the finer gradients of good and evil?
Parmet's decision to firmly anchor this story from Jem's point of view allows "The Starling Girl" to pulse with the ecstasy and confusion of its young heroine, even if the broad predictability of how things play out lends undue weight. to the less familiar details of Jem's religious subculture (i.e., a plot about courtship). It helps that Scanlen's performance refuses to let this movie feel hackneyed.
The Australian actress, whose work in "Babyteeth" and "Little Women" have already established her as a genius of desperate self-development, plays Jem as a young woman who feels everything in her life with evangelical intensity. That includes her love for God, which is ultimately too pure for her to understand what part of herself she is ashamed of. Owen tells Jem that enjoying God's creation is a way of honoring him, and by the end of this gripping and well-acted drama, which only becomes more effective.
Watch The Starling Girl 2023 Movie Trailer
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