Morgan Saylor | Through the Shattered Lens

Ever since it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, I’ve read the White Girl was the most “shocking” film of 2016. You can take a look at the poster above and see that, according to The Hollywood Reporter, White Girl is “SHOCKING … AND SEXY AS HELL!”

Well, I finally got a chance to watch White Girl on Netflix and the only thing shocking about it is that so many (male) critics were apparently convinced that it was the most shocking movie ever made. I certainly wouldn’t call it shocking. (And considering that White Girl features two graphic rapes, I’d love to know why the critic thought “sexy as Hell” would be an appropriate description.) A better description of White Girl would be “honest.” Then again, considering the way that the movies usually present the experience of being young, female, and in the city, perhaps the fact that White Girl is an honest film is the most shocking thing of all.

Morgan Saylor plays Leah, a college student who, along with her friend, Katie (India Meneuz), moves into a New York apartment. The apartment is located in a largely Spanish neighborhood, one that has yet to surrender to gentrification. While Katie and Leah’s hipster friends are immediately suspicious of everyone else in the neighborhood, the Oklahoma-born Leah is far more adventurous (or perhaps reckless). She approaches Blue (Brian Marc) on a street corner and asks him if he has any weed.

Blue has weed and a lot more. He’s the neighborhood drug dealer and soon, he’s also Leah’s boyfriend. When Leah isn’t getting high and having sex with Blue, she’s working as an intern at a magazine where, early on in the film, she’s sexually assaulted by her boss, Kelly (Justin Bartha, playing a predator who, for many, will seem disturbingly familiar). Leah invites Blue to a party given by the magazine and Blue is able to make a lot of money selling cocaine to Leah’s wealthy co-workers.

For Blue, drugs are a business and he refuses to do hard drugs himself. To Leah, it’s an adventure, one that she believes doesn’t have any real consequences. Or, at least, that’s the way she sees it until Blue is arrested. With Blue, a repeat offender, facing a life sentence, Leah manages to find a lawyer (Chris Noth, who will make you skin crawl) but she needs to raise the money to pay him. Fortunately, Leah has a stash of cocaine that Blue was supposed to sell. Blue tells Leah that she needs to return the cocaine to his dealer but instead, Leah decides to sell the cocaine herself. Or, at the very least, she’s going to sell whatever cocaine she doesn’t end up snorting herself…

White Girl has been called shocking because of its open and nonjudgmental portrayal of both drugs and sex but, honestly, there’s nothing shocking about it. It may be a generational thing but, to me, Leah’s story was a familiar one. I’ve known a lot of Leahs and, personally, there were moments in White Girl that left me cringing just because I could relate to one of Leah’s naive notions or I could remember what it was like to feel like, no matter what I did, there would never be any consequences. Leah may not always be a likable character but it’s not because she has sex or experiments with drugs. Instead, it’s because she spends most of the film blissfully unaware of her own privilege. Leah thinks that she understands the realities of Blue’s world but, as she learns by the end of the film, she’s really just a tourist. And, unlike Blue and the rest of her neighbors, Leah can always leave whenever she wants.

So, White Girl was not a shocking film to me. Instead, it was a very honest film. It can currently be viewed on Netflix.

Here are 6 more reviews of 6 other films that I watched this year. Why six? Because Lisa doesn’t do odd numbers, that’s why.

The Big Game (dir by Jalmari Helander)

In The Big Game, Samuel L. Jackson plays the President of the United States and you would think that fact alone would make this film an instant classic. Unfortunately, this film never really takes advantage of the inherent coolness of Samuel L. Jackson playing the leader of the free world. When Air Force One is sabotaged and crashes in the wilderness of Finland, President Jackson has to rely on a young hunter (Onni Tommila) from a group of CIA agents disguised as terrorists. Tommila does a pretty good job and the scenery looks great but at no point does Samuel L. Jackson says, “Check out this executive action, motherfucker,” and that’s a huge missed opportunity. As for the rest of the film, it takes itself a bit too seriously and if you can’t figure out the big twist from the minute the movie starts, you obviously haven’t seen enough movies.

The Connection (dir by Cedric Jiminez)

Taking place over the 1970s, the French crime thriller tells the largely true story of the efforts of a French judge (played by Jean Dujardin) to take down a ruthless gangster (Gilles Lellouche) who is the head of one of the biggest drug cartels in the world. The Connection run for a bit too long but, ultimately, it’s a stylish thriller that does a very good job of creating a world where literally no one can be trusted. Dujardin, best known here in the States for his Oscar-winning role in The Artist, does a great job playing an honest man who is nearly driven to the point of insanity by the corruption all around him.

Graduation Day (dir by Chris Stokes)

Hey, it’s another found footage horror film! Bleh! Now, I should admit that this horror film — which is NOT a remake of that classic 1980s slasher — does have a fairly clever twist towards the end, that goes a long way towards explaining a lot of the inconsistencies that, up until that point, had pretty much dominated the film. But, even with that in mind and admitting that Unfriended and Devil’s Due worked wonders with the concept, it’s still hard to feel any enthusiasm about yet another found footage horror film.

McFarland USA (dir by Niki Caro)

McFarland USA is an extremely predictable but likable movie. Kevin Costner plays a former football coach who, while teaching at a mostly Latino high school, organizes a cross country team that goes on to win the state championship. It’s based on a true story and, at the end of the film, all of the real people appear alongside the actors who played them. There’s nothing about this film that will surprise you but it’s still fairly well-done. Even Kevin Costner, who usually gets on my last nerve, gives a good performance.

Taken 3 (dir by Olivier Megaton)

Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) is back and he’s killing even more people! Fortunately, they’re all bad people but you really do have to wonder what type of dreams Bryan has whenever he goes to sleep. In Taken 3, Bryan’s wife (Famke Janssen) has been murdered and Bryan has been framed. He has to solve the case and kill the bad guys while staying one step ahead of the police (represented by a bored-looking Forest Whitaker). Neeson does all of his usual Taken stuff — the intense phone conversation, the steely glare, and all the rest — but at this point, it has literally been parodied to death. If you’re into watching Liam Neeson kill ugly people, Taken 3 will provide you with adequate entertainment but, for the most part, it’s but a shadow of the first Taken.

War Room (dir by Alex Kendrick)

I saw the War Room in Oklahoma. It was being shown as part of a double feature with The Martian, of all things! Anyway, this film is about an upper middle class family that hits rock bottom but they’re saved by the power of prayer! Lots and lots of prayer! Seriously, this film almost qualifies as “prayer porn.” Anyway, the film was badly acted, badly written, incredibly heavy-handed, and ran on way too long but, on the plus side, it did eventually end.