Vibrant Indie Pop Musical ‘God Help the Girl’

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Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Opening at Chicago’s Music Box Theater this weekend is a full-length musical conceived by Stuart Murdoch, the lead singer of indie pop darlings Belle & Sebastian, making his debut as a writer/director. Surpassing the notion of a concept album, Murdoch has engineered a vibrant experience that is missing all but the introduction of a new dance move. Directly similar to the music he created with Belle & Sebastian, “God Help the Girl” starts with poppy intent and then stands out with a few curveballs, ultimately making for some lovely pop sweetness.

This Scotland musical is light on its feet regarding tone and also narrative. Australian transplant Eve (Emily Browning) is a music-lover and songwriter who sneaks out of her anorexia treatment to spend time playing music in the city, hanging out with new friend James (Olly Alexander). Along with his sister Cassie (Hannah Murray), the three try to start a band (with songs that sound a lot like Belle & Sebastian).

With the script’s beauty mirrored more distinctly in the film’s music more than its own lyricism, “God Help the Girl” contrasts elaborate and often delightful musical numbers to riskily featherweight storytelling (especially in context of that 111 min running time). As narrative albums go, “God Help the Girl” is no indie-pop-era. Loosely-existing lead characters nearly blow away in the film’s breeziness. They are at best breathing components of the movie’s look, hip young folk dressed to the twee, singing and shimmying and nonetheless creating an infectious energy, one that is anomalous to the modern movie musical.

Emily Browning in ‘God Help the Girl’
Photo credit: Amplify Releasing

Murdoch utilizes this musical element to have his characters lip-sync at the camera, often while simply goofing around. Variegated in their scope but maintaining a specific song style and music production quality, the sing-song moments do stand as a contagious duo of free-spirited filmmaking and catchy tunes. Murdoch’s passion within so many facets of this project becomes a reward for the audience as well.

When gaging the film as a quirky, agile coming-of-age comedy, some of his joke beats can be stale (inserted flashbacks especially). His potential as an interesting filmmaker shows most in his perspective, which shines here in a refreshing presentation of gender; Browning is a centerpiece that he respects, her pouty lip-sync sequences are his most aggressive use of her. Murdoch also expresses a funny truth about band dudes, their asides throughout the movies about women showing how men are the ones who would more believably fail the Bechdel standards in a film.

Hannah Murray and Olly Alexander in ‘God Help the Girl’
Photo credit: Amplify Releasing

Beholding the dedication within an intelligently-made full-length feature musical written, directed, and composed by a songwriter can sometimes be all that one needs when experiencing such a spirited endeavor. Murdoch’s underdeveloped skills as film storyteller are forgivable especially when packaged with such admirable intent, and amongst such accomplished songs.

By NICK ALLEN Editor & Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com nick@hollywoodchicago.com