[Fantastic Fest 2020 Review] Bella Thorne is Revelatory in the Rural Neo-Noir GIRL

“If someone bad dies, it’s good...right?”, Bella Thorne’s Girl asks towards the middle of Chad Faust’s rural, neo-noir Girl and it’s a question that cuts to the heart of not only the film but also of the genre it operates in. One of the defining characteristics of noir is that it operates in a world of moral ambiguity, where characters make startling decisions as they begin to uncover the truth of their situation. It’s a guiding principle in Girl and while a large urban city is traded for a decrepit rural town on its last few steps towards oblivion, Faust’s film explores the neo-noir genre with a keen eye and sharp dialogue. 

The narrative is stripped to its very essences, where even most of the characters aren’t given names. It begins with Girl on a bus heading towards the town of Golden. She calls her Mama (Elizabeth Saunders) to ask again about the violent letter her Daddy (John Clifford Talbot) sent them, that spearheaded her sojourn. With a heavy sigh, Mama repeats that she had sent a lawyer to Girl’s dad for back payments and “your daddy don’t like it, so the broke cheapskate is gonna come kill me.” After refusing Girl a return address, Mama tries to get her to return home, warning, “You wanna know him, take a look at my broken back. You stay away from Golden. There’s nothing good there.”

But Girl can’t. 

With no address or anyone to count on, she begins her investigation the old fashioned way upon arriving in the decaying town. On her way into town, she passes a boarded up church and is briefly accosted by the Sheriff (Mickey Rourke) who has a mischievous twinkle in his eye and a knowing look. More hints of the decay nestling in the town is obvious, from a boarded up public school, its sign lying forgotten on the ground to the once presumably bustling main street that’s now deserted, save for a pair of mangy dogs. Store fronts are boarded or blacked out and the lone person on the sidewalk side-eyes her warily. But the bar is open and that’s where she discovers her father’s address and the intent of her quest becomes strikingly clear: Girl has a hatchet and she’s not afraid to use it. 

When she gets to her father’s house, she finds it in shambles, the bed cut open, lamps smashed on the floor. But in the shed, she discovers the remains of her beaten and tortured father, his face bloody and bruised. Someone has robbed her of her revenge and the narrative spins from there, as Girl’s investigation into her father becomes one of locating his killers. But what she discovers is a family legacy that threatens to destroy her. 

Girl is rural neo-noire stripped to its most essential but it does something a little subversive with its main character. The narrative casts Bella has both the detective and the femme fatale, a combination we typically do not see in the noir genre. Her past is mysterious and is only communicated through phone conversations with her decrepit mother and the dwindling townsfolk of Golden who know her and her family. Like a traditional femme fatale, Girl’s motives are obscured outside of her desire to exact revenge on her bastard father and its only through side characters and overheard conversations that we learn there’s more to the story.

On the surface, she seems like a lost young woman, desperately trying to make sense of the crazy world. But underneath, she’s vicious and knows how to take care of herself. Her hatchet is a both a symbol of her desire for revenge but it also tethers her to her past, when her father taught six-year-old Girl how to use it. Coincidentally, she tells a man, “I stopped knowing him when I was six.” Through bits of revealing dialogue like this, we start to piece together Girl’s past. She’s also cast in the role of the detective, though, as she scours the town for clues for her father’s killers and the all-important “why.”

Chad Faust’s script works because it throws its titular hero and the audience into a constant state of confusion as the entertainingly convoluted narrative keeps unveiling new information and twists. Golden is as broken as any city in a noir ever has been and, of course, the conspiracy goes all the way to the top. Each little epiphany Girl discovers from its denizens, like a friendly Bartender (Glen Gould) or a creepily charming man who goes by Charmer (Chad Faust), twists the story into darker territories. Girl is driven by this desperate need to know and understand both her family’s legacy but Faust conceives of a world in which knowledge doesn’t really solve anything. In the words of the Bartender, “[The] one time I knew what was going on, I lost my toes. Knowing and not knowing don’t mean a damn thing. It’s having toes and not having toes.” 

Girl is a heavy story with some nasty twists and turns (some of which are telegraphed a bit too much), but it’s surprisingly grounded in a revelatory performance by Bella Thorne. So much of her character arc is responding to new information that completely changes her understanding of the town and her place in it, but it’s moments like this that really showcase Bella Thorne’s acting range. While she’s initially introduced in a “I’m so gritty” way, grabbing beer bottles from the neck to take a swig and clad in baggy, ill-fitting clothes and messy hair, it’s her acting later in the film that truly sells the character. One of the most powerful moments comes as she discovers her father’s body. The range of emotions flying across her face was heart-breaking to watch in their authenticity.

Ultimately, Girl is equal parts a depressing exploration of the fragility of families and thrilling tale of revenge (that’s not grounded in sexual assault for once). Golden becomes a device to explore this vulnerability as the town has failed its citizens much like a family can fail their children. But it also stresses that there aren’t easy answers or solutions, just like to Girl’s question about whether it’s good that a bad man dies in the grand scheme of things. It’s immaterial in the grand scheme of things.

Or, as the Bartender would say, “There is no making this place better.”