By way of unintentional contrast, I watched The Fits not long after watching The Falling – a film similar in that it deals with mass fainting of girls around the age of puberty. I will not compare and contrast the films, except to say that while The Falling left me on the outside looking it, The Fits manages to draw me into a character for whom I have little in common, make me understand what she is going through, and very much feel for her throughout the film.The plot sees a young girl stop boxing with her older brother in the gym and start to pay attention to the all-girl dance troupe that practice in another hall. As she joins the group and starts to integrate, some of the older girls fall into sudden seizures (which are dubbed 'the fits'). The split between those girls who have experienced these, and those that have not forms tensions within the wider group. The film achieves this while doing (by doing?) several surprising things. The most obvious is that dialogue is very light on the ground, and when it comes it tends to be functional stuff rather than any exposition or grandstanding for the cast to get their teeth into. The other thing it does is let the actual fits be a background thing – something that is happening but is not our focus; instead Toni is our focus, and our relationship to anything in the film is through her.There are so many ways this could not have worked, but it pulls it off well. Hightower gives a great performance and is very well directed; so much I was invested in with her character was down to small reactions, body language, the sense of pent up feeling – all of it drawing me in and giving me things I could relate to even if the specifics I could not. The journey is very clear, and the implied meanings are fairly obvious – but it is the intelligence and subtlety of the story- telling through this character that makes it more than just a series of events (far from it in fact).The Fits is a beautifully observed character study, which never lets the plot device become more than the people – and Toni is accessible and engaging as a character, and thanks to a very well-directed performance from the young lead. It is not a perfect film, and the sense of space may annoy some viewers, or the weakness of some aspects may grate, but at its core it is a tremendous film with near total control over what it is trying to do and how it is trying to do it.

'THE FITS': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five)Low-budget indie drama, that was a huge hit with critics last year. It's about an 11-year-old tomboy that's really struggling to fit into a girls' dance troupe, when the girls begin to suffer from an unexplained epidemic of seizure like fits. The film was co-written and directed by Anna Rose Holmer, in her feature film debut, and it stars newcomer Royalty Hightower. The movie was made on a budget of just $168,000 and it still managed to become one of the best reviewed films of last year (with critics). I enjoyed it, but obviously not as much as most of the critics have. Toni (Hightower) is an 11-year-old girl, living in Cincinnati, who trains regularly at a Community Center boxing gym, with her brother Jermaine (Da'Sean Minor). One day she notices a girls' dance troupe practicing at the same gym, and she decides she might want to join them. After her brother talks her into it, Toni attends tryouts for the team. As she then attempts to fit in with the other girls, they randomly begin having unexplained violent fits, and it appears some sort of an epidemic is occurring!The film starts out like a coming-of-age urban drama, and then it morphs into something else. There definitely appears to be a lot of symbolism going on in it, for real life problems and issues, but I'm not sure what the point of the whole movie is. Still, it is really well shot and acted. I'll admit it's definitely a well made movie, I guess I'm just not the right audience member to quite understand it all.Watch our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D9ZNHDah5M

This movie was so awful that it has made me angry. Absolute waste of time. Zero entertainment. This movie is not for the average audience looking for an enjoyable movie. I can't understand what everybody commenting seems to have loved so much. I have never watched a worse movie in my life, and never will. The amount of disappointment that I am feeling right now cannot be put into words.Please do not waste your valuable time and money on this absolutely ridiculous train wreck of a movie. Writing this review is the first time in the past two hours that I have felt good, it is such a relief to be able to vent my frustrations about this stupid movie! Aaarrrghhh

I always find it somewhat of a shame when a movie that has everything going for it falls flat on its face. That's what happens in "The Fits". The description here on IMDb properly describes the movie. Unfortunately the movie itself does little more to take it beyond that description.The directing and acting is excellent, especially by lead actor Royalty Hightower. She is not alone, backed up by some excellent casting for the parts of her best friend and her brother.Were this a simple slice-of-life movie it would be acceptable and interesting. But it doesn't qualify as such. It takes the viewer down a specific road of semi-realistic insight into the life of a black adolescent girl, then throws that all out the window with what can only be described as a plunge into script-writing and directing self-indulgence. I always wonder how so many people can be involved in creating a work like this without someone stepping up and saying, "Hey, has anyone noticed the plot line stinks?" At the end, the viewer is left asking, "What was that supposed to be all about?". The result is a mixture of enjoyment, shock and disappointment as we realize yet another movie with potential has been flippantly cast to the canines.Yes, pun intended. You'll need some humor after watching this.