Sundance Review: Adura Onashile’s Tender Mother-Daughter Story ‘Girl’

World Dramatic Competition Premiere, Adura Onashile’s feature film debut girl is set in Glasgow, Scotland, but given the themes of identity and belonging, this tender tale of a runaway mother and daughter could just as easily take place anywhere. While the production values ​​are exceptional for a low-budget British film, there’s also a sense that Onashile has found an interesting way to tell her story, push her boundaries and take us into the claustrophobic fishbowl life of these kidnapped both loners to deepen. so that the outside world appears strange and “different” to us when we are confronted with it.

The mother Grace (Déborah Lukumuena) is in her mid-twenties and is devoted to her 11-year-old daughter Ama (Le’Shantey Bonsu). Their backstory is never fully explained, only that the two only have each other and desire nothing more than a kind of sophisticated residential idyll to live in together, complete with carpets “soft and white as clouds”. Instead, her home is a dilapidated apartment building where Grace has Ama locked up every night while she works as a cleaner at a mall. Grace counts each step away from her daughter while Ama stares through binoculars at the city of lights below.

Grace has a mantra – “We can’t trust anyone” – and her paranoia is fueled by frequent visits from a compassionate social worker concerned about Ama’s erratic school attendance. Grace would prefer to never leave the house and no one would know they were ever there, but her desire for anonymity is thrown off balance when Ama sees a fire break out in an apartment building across the street. The little girl in this family is Ama’s age and goes to the same school, so they become friends. Any other parent would be happy, but Grace flinches, the first sign that she’s overprotective.

There are shades of Lynne Ramsays rat catcher Ama and her friend visit an immaculate show home, where they throw empty wine glasses at a chic designer table and throw up clean white cotton sheets. At the same time, Grace’s background is revealed in more and more fragments, hinting at the trauma that not only explains why she became a mother at such a young age, but also why she fears Ama when she becomes a woman. Something has to go, and if the block of flats has to be demolished, he will. Grace and Ama are moved to a boarding house and something of a bait and switch ensues; It turns out there’s more than “one” girl in this story, and Ama’s story goes quiet for a while as Onashile turns her attention to Grace and how she’s grown into an adult she was never ready for.

It’s a dark story, but Onashile focuses on the light, and she’s assisted in this by Tasha Back’s razor-sharp cinematography and Ré Olunuga’s ethereal score, which is a very welcome change from the understated plinky plonk that is the standard is what Brits seem to be too. dramas about social issues. Of the core duo, Lukumuena has the toughest job, playing an emotionally frozen and often selfish character who seems determined to destroy her daughter’s future. In contrast, Young Bonsu is a discovery and delight that shows a surprising amount of nuance and maturity. As a calling card, Girl is an impeccable show for anyone, but for audiences it’s a rewarding study in alienation that presents the immigrant experience through a refreshingly different lens.