Popular reviews

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  Review by Josh Lewis ★ 8

  The kind of movie that mistakes leering and gawking and cynical shocks for sympathy. Listen to trans critics.

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  Review by Laurence Barber ★ 13

  The more I think about this the more I detest it. Do we really need films about trans people in 2018 which constitute pure misery and self-hatred? This movie isn't interested in shining a light on what trans teens struggle with, it just wants to beat its trans character into the ground so cis people who've never met or spoken to a trans person, never really taken an interest in what it's like to be trans beyond the plot outline bullet points of gender dysmorphia and transition, can gasp and tut in muted, liberal shock (of which I, too, have been guilty). Nearly every review out of Cannes stressed the film's "empathetic" nature but almost all I could see was that being confused for sheer, patronising pity.

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  Review by lucas ★★★½

  men are trash but her father certainly wasn’t! dad of the year

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★★½ 45

  Cisgender audiences are confronted by an inescapable irony as they watch “Girl,” the arrestingly empathetic debut from Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont. Few narrative dramas (if any) have more sensitively explored the nuances of growing up transgender, the bravery required to transition, and the struggle for self-acceptance that can motivate or define that process. Likewise, few narrative dramas (if any) have more palpably distilled the pain of being deadnamed, the humiliation of being reduced to your body, and the cruelty of being misrepresented as something that you’re not.

  So how do we, who can only share in such experiences second-hand, square all that with the fact that the lead character — a 16-year-old ballerina who’s impatiently waiting for her gender-confirmation surgery — is played by a cisgender male actor?

  READ THE FULL REVIEW ON INDIEWIRE

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  Review by Maëva

  i want a movie where a trans woman chases ghosts, i want one where a trans woman is a private detective, i want a movie where a middle-aged trans woman finds love, i want a movie with a mean trans woman, i want a trans woman with superpowers, not this shit.

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  Review by stevie ★ 2

  ......girl.

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  Review by amarihsleiman ★

  Thanks to this cis white dude for weighing in on the trans issue and making such a damaging representation of trans people in 2018 !! This movie is made for cis audiences to clutch their pearls and murmur about how awful it is to be trans without ANY consideration for the actual trans experience. Awful.

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  Review by elena ★★★ 1

  What is this description? A girl born in a boy’s body? I have reported this to Letterboxd. Also, trans genital mutilation as trans representation, urghh.

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  Review by Terence Ang 洪偉凱 ★★

  Lukas, Dhont!

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  Review by Aziel Jane Vivian ★ 18

  Pretty much what I expected. A Trans misery film that exploits people's trauma in order for cis audiences to "sympathize". Even if you ignore the exploitative nature of the film (such as the many shots of her penis) it's overall a really boring movie. The cinematography was decent but It didn't add much to the film. There's nothing that particularly sticks out. I find it annoying that there's alot trans themed films (that I haven't watched for a reason) that like to focus on the pain and suffering instead of focusing on the euphoria and liberation of being trans and expressing that transness. It's just boring and generic and should really stop.

  (Also played by a cis actor....again)

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  Review by Willow Maclay ★

  "With the recent release of Lukas Dhont’s Netflix movie, Girl (2019), I’ve been thinking more about the idea of transgender representation and what images are vital in understanding our experiences. I hate the new Netflix movie, not because I find its existence objectionable, but because there’s nothing really there in the text that tells you anything about transness that cisgender people don’t already believe. It’s a movie about cutting off your penis to become a woman (in real life the penis is actually inverted to create a vagina, but I won’t bore you with the details). It’s also about the crushing torture of the gender binary in ballet as a metaphor for an inability to find your true self. It’s…

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  Review by Allison M. 🌱 ★★★

  The movie focuses on Lara, a transgender girl. She goes to school, ballet, and has a normal home life. She lies to her dad about things and faces all kinds of trauma. The performance was subdued. I felt like I wanted more from the story, but it was a pretty decent slice of life film.

  Vegan alert:
  -Lara's brother was cracking eggs.
  -Lara cooks a meat dish for the New Year's Eve meal.