'Girl' Review: Bella Thorne's raw acting and a menacing Mickey Rourke make revenge thriller a treat to watch
Spoilers for 'Girl'
As one of the busiest actresses this year when all projects have been shelved and quarantined, Bella Thorne has had four brand new feature films to her credit. And the latest of the lot, November's 'Girl' is by far the most appealing she has ever been on screen. With her penchant for the slasher genre exhibited through Netflix's 'Babysitter' franchise, Thorne brings her finest in the Chad Faust film where she plays the role of the titular character without a name. It's like 'Fleabag' with characters referred to without their names, but there's only sparse comedy as thrill and action rule out throughout the plot painted with vendetta and bloodlust. That Mickey Rourke makes an onscreen comeback is also a wonderful added bonus.
The plot is quite simple and a predictable one at that too. All the way in the middle of nowhere called Golden, 'Girl' returns to kill her a**hole of a father who had stranded her and her mother years ago. Unfortunately, when she arrives at her father's barn, she finds someone has already beaten her to the task, ruining her life's purpose. Thus sparks a story of vengeance and bloodthirst as 'Girl' tries to discover who killed her father, with complex and conflicted emotions reigning high for a patriarch she could never quite see eye to eye with.
Rourke fits into the plot as the sleazy townie Sherriff, who, along with his brother and Faust-played character 'Charmer' pretend to be the looming presence of doom while our Girl tries to go about her journey of exacting revenge. It soon becomes clear that the Sherriff and the Charmer are after a heavy amount of money that Girl's father owned and has now been inherited by her. So they help her hunt whoever killed the father while hunting her in the process and soon she proves that an axe must never be underestimated in front of a gun.
Rourke brings the menace to this story as he tries to be suspiciously nice to Girl and there's distrust in everybody she encounters which Thorne channels with expert taste and measured calculation. In that, for someone who has played the ditzy high school cheerleader and previously Disney roles, Thorne's very metal avatar is a treat to behold - one that you wouldn't quite see coming. Faust knows this just as brilliantly as he knows he has the face for the scheming charmer and lending his face for the role only seasons the already juicy plot further.
Sure, there are issues with the progression sometimes being all talk and not enough action complimenting it. The expository tropes often get over the top too, with the background score, although adept at piquing our intrigue and suspense, they can't consistently save the film from taking itself way too seriously for being a B-thriller at best. It's no 'Gone Girl' or 'Mad Max', but there is an authentic charm and signature dystopic deliverance about Thorne's Girl that bears a striking reminder of why she has been so booked this year. If nothing, it's a solid attempt at reinventing herself in the territory of feature films as more than just a flimsy but controversial social media icon.
'Girl' released in theatres on November 20 and is available for renting or buying on-demand from November 24.