Review: DIRTY GIRL

IMDB Synopsis :A comedic story of the search for identity and the redemptive power of unexpected friendship. Danielle is the dirty girl of Norman High School. When Danielle's misbehavior gets her banished to special ed, she teams up with an innocent closet-case and together they head out on a road trip to discover each other and themselves through a funny and serendipitous friendship.
Rating: 4/10

Dirty Girl was a film I was excited to watch. I knew the premise, and I'm a huge fan of Juno Temple. I was expecting it to be a film to tackle the homophobic views of America, as well as the issue of shaming sexual women. It tried... But left a lot to be desired.

The name itself is misleading, Temple's character is not "dirty". I was expecting this to be a film to take an overly sexual young woman and show how that's not such a bad thing to be. However, the only time it is implied that Temple's lead Danielle is being sexual is a brief encounter at the beginning in a parked car, and a slightly risque comment in a classroom.

Set in the 1980's, Danielle's mum is married to a Mormon man, who wants to adopt Danielle and change her "sexual" ways. However they don't show the extent that these families will go to to protect their daughters innocence. It would have been a much better film if the jokes surrounding her alleged promiscuity were turned into a hard-hitting drama about what women like this had to suffer.

Her gay best friend could have been done a lot better too. The overall campness and cheese of the film, including a scene with the pair singing and dancing in the car, as well as two horrible choreographed strip-scenes, makes his sexuality a mockery. It would have been a much better film if it had shown these very different teenagers struggle to live in the "man's world" that they do.