New Waterford Girl!
Dec. 4th, 2011 06:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerNew Waterford Girl! I've meant to watch it all year and finally got around to it last week and it's splendid: an exquisite example of my favorite, favorite type of story: the Clever, Imaginative Girl Does Stuff.
Most splendid of all, of course, is the Clever, Imaginative Girl herself. Moonie is an artist, a dreamer, who desperately wants to escape her tiny Nova Scotian town. She wins a scholarship to an arts school in New York - but her parents won't let her go. As her father says, "You can't even be normal here!"
Momentarily thwarted, Moonie conceives a wickedly brilliant escape plan. (I was expecting a road trip plan, or possibly a heist plan, but Moonie's plan is much cleverer and more underhanded than that.) While putting this plan in action, Moonie makes a friend: Lou the new girl, fresh from New York.
(I wish their friendship had been a little more developed; that's the only thing about the movie which isn't perfect.)
Or rather, Lou forcibly befriends Moonie. They seem like opposites: Lou is vivacious, impulsive, and determinedly upbeat, quite a contrast to Moonie's brooding intensity. But despite their very different self-presentations, both are ferociously strong. Moreover, both are outsiders - Lou even more so than Moonie.
One of the things that I love about Moonie is that, though she is a consummate outsider, she's an insider as well. Her whole family - no, her whole town - thinks that she's really weird. She reads books as she drifts through town or sits at dinner, ignoring everyone else; she's prickly and withdrawn as well as brilliant.
(Moonie's prickliness also sets her apart from the general run of Clever, Imaginative Heroines, who tend to be sweet. I have nothing against sweetness - it's one of the reasons I like this sort of story so much, actually - but prickliness has its charms too, and it's always fun to see a new twist on an old trope.)
But for all that, Moonie is their weirdo, and they love her.
***
Other cool movies I have seen this week: Songcatcher, about a female musicology professor in the early twentieth century who goes to the Appalachian mountains to visit her sister and realizes that the mountain people are still singing ballads that they brought over from England two hundred years ago! IT'S LIKE THIS MOVIE WAS MADE FOR ME.
Most splendid of all, of course, is the Clever, Imaginative Girl herself. Moonie is an artist, a dreamer, who desperately wants to escape her tiny Nova Scotian town. She wins a scholarship to an arts school in New York - but her parents won't let her go. As her father says, "You can't even be normal here!"
Momentarily thwarted, Moonie conceives a wickedly brilliant escape plan. (I was expecting a road trip plan, or possibly a heist plan, but Moonie's plan is much cleverer and more underhanded than that.) While putting this plan in action, Moonie makes a friend: Lou the new girl, fresh from New York.
(I wish their friendship had been a little more developed; that's the only thing about the movie which isn't perfect.)
Or rather, Lou forcibly befriends Moonie. They seem like opposites: Lou is vivacious, impulsive, and determinedly upbeat, quite a contrast to Moonie's brooding intensity. But despite their very different self-presentations, both are ferociously strong. Moreover, both are outsiders - Lou even more so than Moonie.
One of the things that I love about Moonie is that, though she is a consummate outsider, she's an insider as well. Her whole family - no, her whole town - thinks that she's really weird. She reads books as she drifts through town or sits at dinner, ignoring everyone else; she's prickly and withdrawn as well as brilliant.
(Moonie's prickliness also sets her apart from the general run of Clever, Imaginative Heroines, who tend to be sweet. I have nothing against sweetness - it's one of the reasons I like this sort of story so much, actually - but prickliness has its charms too, and it's always fun to see a new twist on an old trope.)
But for all that, Moonie is their weirdo, and they love her.
***
Other cool movies I have seen this week: Songcatcher, about a female musicology professor in the early twentieth century who goes to the Appalachian mountains to visit her sister and realizes that the mountain people are still singing ballads that they brought over from England two hundred years ago! IT'S LIKE THIS MOVIE WAS MADE FOR ME.
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no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 01:53 am (UTC)ETA:
Okay.
WHAT THE SHIT.
I got up until the "you disgust me!" speech and stopped and looked it up on Wikipedia. And looked at the ending. And went "WHAT WAS THE BLOODY POINT OF THE ENTIRE MOVIE, THEN?"
(I also kind of hate "uptight citywoman is taught a lesson in the good simple life by poor honest countryfolk" stories.)
*distressed*
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 05:47 pm (UTC)But I don't think the story can be summed up as "uptight citywoman is taught a lesson etc. etc." Lily never needs to learn a lesson about the simple life; she already appreciates the simple life/folk music when she goes to the Appalachians, and her belief that they have value never changes.
In the end it's Tom, her Appalachian boyfriend, who comes around to her point of view. He begins by thinking she's going to steal their songs, but comes around to her point of view that the beautiful Appalachian folksongs ought to be shared.
Her belief does make the Appalachian people feel more proud of their songs, but I don't think the movie can be summed up as "educated urban person brings Enlightenment to the rural poor," either. They already loved their songs; they just never had any reason before to believe that outsiders might love them too (and lots of reasons to believe outsiders wouldn't - given how outsiders generally look down on everything they do).
Insofar as Lily learns a lesson, she learns that her professor boyfriend back at the university is Creepy McCreeperton. I think the movie would be seriously improved if she got to smack him across the face at some point.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-07 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-07 08:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-08 05:28 pm (UTC)