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I have to confess, I went into Nzinga Stewart’s Tall Girl with doubts about the premise. Can you really build a movie around the hardships of being a hot blonde tall girl?
The answer appears to be “no.” Or at least, if it is possible, Tall Girl didn’t accomplish it.
Basically the movie has two problems. The first is that there’s a mismatch between Jodi’s level of obsessive self-pity about her height (high) and the actual hardships of being tall. She keeps giving examples about the difficulties of her life, but it’s stuff like - plane seats are uncomfortable! Sometimes people who don’t know you well think of you as “the tall girl”! Some people don’t want to date you!
And by “some people” Jodi definitely means “guys who are shorter than she is,” except… Jodi herself is unwilling to date guys who are shorter than she is… so it’s not clear to me why she cares that many of them, in turn, are unwilling to date her.
Also, let’s be real. Even in a character whose situation is objectively much more pitiable than Jodi’s, self-pity is rarely a winning character trait. And, given that Jodi’s plight is “being tall,” it’s bizarre that no one ever points out the general benefits of tallness (ninety percent of CEOs are of above average height! Tall people in general earn more money!) or the particular advantages that it bestows upon Jodi, like the fact that she looks like a model.
This brings us to the second problem with the movie: the romantic subplots. ( Putting spoilers behind a cut )
There’s a scene where Jodi crashes the stage at Homecoming to give a speech about how some of her classmates have only ever seen her as “the tall girl” (although I’m not sure what else Jodi wants them to see in her; she’s unwilling to play the piano in public, for instance, so her classmates have no way of knowing that they could be seeing her as “the musical girl”) but now she has learned SELF-ACCEPTANCE.
Then everyone claps, because it’s a movie, but we all know that in real life they would stare in bafflement like the 1950s prom-goers in Back to the Future when Marty McFly busts out some rockin’ 80s tunes. Why is Jodi even giving a speech? Why does she think this epiphany is so important that she needs to interrupt the dance and make everyone listen to her? Does she hate being “the tall girl” so much that she prefers to be “the weird girl who gave a speech at Homecoming”? Because that’s who she’s going to be from now on.
Basically the scene is meant to show that Jodi has Grown as a Person because now she accepts herself, but actually it demonstrates that her real problem - her self-absorption - has only grown larger over the course of the film.
The answer appears to be “no.” Or at least, if it is possible, Tall Girl didn’t accomplish it.
Basically the movie has two problems. The first is that there’s a mismatch between Jodi’s level of obsessive self-pity about her height (high) and the actual hardships of being tall. She keeps giving examples about the difficulties of her life, but it’s stuff like - plane seats are uncomfortable! Sometimes people who don’t know you well think of you as “the tall girl”! Some people don’t want to date you!
And by “some people” Jodi definitely means “guys who are shorter than she is,” except… Jodi herself is unwilling to date guys who are shorter than she is… so it’s not clear to me why she cares that many of them, in turn, are unwilling to date her.
Also, let’s be real. Even in a character whose situation is objectively much more pitiable than Jodi’s, self-pity is rarely a winning character trait. And, given that Jodi’s plight is “being tall,” it’s bizarre that no one ever points out the general benefits of tallness (ninety percent of CEOs are of above average height! Tall people in general earn more money!) or the particular advantages that it bestows upon Jodi, like the fact that she looks like a model.
This brings us to the second problem with the movie: the romantic subplots. ( Putting spoilers behind a cut )
There’s a scene where Jodi crashes the stage at Homecoming to give a speech about how some of her classmates have only ever seen her as “the tall girl” (although I’m not sure what else Jodi wants them to see in her; she’s unwilling to play the piano in public, for instance, so her classmates have no way of knowing that they could be seeing her as “the musical girl”) but now she has learned SELF-ACCEPTANCE.
Then everyone claps, because it’s a movie, but we all know that in real life they would stare in bafflement like the 1950s prom-goers in Back to the Future when Marty McFly busts out some rockin’ 80s tunes. Why is Jodi even giving a speech? Why does she think this epiphany is so important that she needs to interrupt the dance and make everyone listen to her? Does she hate being “the tall girl” so much that she prefers to be “the weird girl who gave a speech at Homecoming”? Because that’s who she’s going to be from now on.
Basically the scene is meant to show that Jodi has Grown as a Person because now she accepts herself, but actually it demonstrates that her real problem - her self-absorption - has only grown larger over the course of the film.
