Three troubled teenage girls have their lives changed when they miraculously transform into boys.
Review by Emily Craig (@emillycraig)
Directed by: Alexandra-Therese Keining
Starring: Tuva Jagell, Louise Nyvall, Wilma Holmen, Mandus Berg, Adam Dahlgren, Malin Eriksson, Alexander Gustavsson
For a young-adult film, it’s extremely tense and explores some complex themes such as transgender identity and sexual orientation. It’s not very often you get a film that considers these complicated themes, and especially with a unique plot – it’s a breath of fresh air.
Girls Lost is based on an award-winning novel by Jessica Schiefauer, written and directed by Alexandra-Therese Keining. The complex film is centred around 14 year old Kim (Tuva Jagell), and her friends Momo (Louise Nyvall) and Bella (Wilma Holmen). The girls are bullied terribly at school by the popular boys, which becomes quite intense for them. One day, Kim comes across a strange seed that will grow into a flower in just one day. When fully grown, the girls visit the flower, which is aesthetically pleasing, fantastical, with butterflies flying round it, and as if by magic the girls turn into boys for the evening.
Kim is in the transitional period of her adolescent years and is extremely confused about her sexual identity and orientation. She is significantly more “boyish” than her two best friends and actually, her male counterpart ironically shows more female characteristics than she does. Where Bella and Momo see the transformation as nothing but a bit of fun and an experience, Kim gets a taste for it and goes off the rails when she befriends a young thief named Tony (Mandus Berg).
For a young-adult film, it’s extremely tense and explores some complex themes such as transgender identity and sexual orientation. It’s not very often you get a film that considers these complicated themes, and especially with a unique plot – it’s a breath of fresh air. I loved the chemistry between the three girls and I thought they all acted amazingly, as well as their male doppelgangers.
The title Girls Lost really is just perfect; the girls are confused and lost, which translates to the audience, enabling us to sympathise with the characters. The film is certainly going to be very popular with the LGBT community and transgender identity is something that yes, has featured in films such as Boys Don’t Cry and recently Tangerine, but I don’t think it has been explored to the extent it deserves.
There is a foreboding sense of danger threaded throughout; the film charmed the socks off me but at the same time, because of this underlying darkness, I was never fully settled because this made me feel like something bad was going to happen. And so I waited for this, and waited and waited until the film had ended – yes, dramatic things happen and terrible things also, but it never got to the stage that I felt like the film was taking us, which doesn’t make it bad in any sense, it just was slightly disappointing that I didn’t quite get the dramatic finale I was waiting for. Other than this, I can’t think of any bad thing to say about Girls Lost; it’s inspirational and completely original.
Girls Lost is on DVD December 5th.
