The premise and plot of this movie is remarkable, thought-provoking and funny in a very strange way. The story is developed in almost Amélie-like fashion with quirky characters and plot development but it doesn't quite go all the way and thus stays in a strange limbo. I got a few laughs out of the quirkiness but there was more potential. The budget must have been extremely slim. A lot of the backgrounds and sets seem more like theatre than film (that may have been intentional, but according to me takes away from the movie's effectiveness) The story itself is thought-provoking but also a bit predictable. Sonia tries to research the nazi past of her town but gets rejected at every turn. For this part of the plot the quirkiness and strange parts of the plot are sometimes very much in the way of the impact the story, mostly its injustice and phoniness of the characters, may have had. The movie has a great potential for being fun, quirky, thought-provoking and "important" but as none of the elements is perfected and due to the distracting style and sets it doesn't quite reach its impact. That is why I think the story would deserve a remake.

I bought The Nasty Girl blind, not knowing either the film, nor director. It was that it had been Oscar nominated and the title and cover suggested something juicy and punky, that the Nasty Girl was indeed, far from being a Saint.But she is, of sorts. This, my second viewing allowed me to see deeper into the film's structure and message. Lena Stolze, as Sonja, the girl, then a woman who starts out thinking up a subject for her school essay assignment. Teachers always like to patronise their pupils when they show enthusiasm and initiative and so, her project is blessed and praised. At first.As her task becomes a full-time passion and as she uncovers possible cover ups as to who in the town were Nazis and how far their crimes went, those doors to her, previously so open, are now closed. Director Michael Verhoeven (whose name sounds Dutch but he was born in Berlin) employs a necessary offbeat and humorous approach, sometimes stylised sets, with back-projected interiors pasted on. There's an air of flippancy throughout and the briskness of the narrative means that we don't ponder too much on a single point before moving on.The slamming doors become sticks of dynamite and death-threats, which we cannot take that seriously due to semi-comic take on it all. Court cases come up, are won, lost and won again. Inhabitant's opinions change after an accident involving the judge picking pears causes the final case to collapse.You, like me, may find that there are unanswered questions and ultimately, whilst the journey was fun for most of its time, what really was the point? What did she prove, apart from the fact that she was able to change opinion.Anyway, a nice little film, not too long and a bit different and also, really quite German.

Using Brecht's idea of Epic Theatre, Michael Verhoeven creates a stage upon which audiences can learn from the past, and critique such instances from World War Two and Nazi Germany through the main character Sonja's struggles. Brecht wanted Epic Theatre to use history and let audiences apply it to the present. This type of theatre makes you aware that you are watching something staged, so that you analyze the situation rather then feeling the same emotions of the characters. Verhoeven does this very nicely using a few alienation effects (also know as vefremdungs effekt). One scene taking the walls down of Sonja's living room and having it float through town while people anonymously call and threaten her family. Here the idea of Foucault's panoptican (an instrument that can see everything) comes into play as well. Sonya has no anonymity from the public, which is made up of the church, the government, the media, and the fifth establishment (the elder generation that serve as a link from the past to the present), yet she cannot identify any of them specifically. Later on again in a different sequence, Verhoeven brings back the walls. It is here that Sonja learns some names she can use to defend herself, and the walls of defense are back. Bringing back the walls also helps alarm the audience, just in case they were becoming too comfortable without them.Another part of the film is Sonja's family. In many scenes the children are seen crying and the father, Martin, tending to them and getting rather flustered. At one point he yells at Sonja telling her how her children would like their mother. Later on at the end of the film we learn that he has left her. Verhoeven plays on Sonja's obsession for finding the truth as a distraction from her family, yet there are parts where she still says she needs to stop, for the safety of her family because of threats. I think the scenes of neglecting the family are overdone to not show the point that Sonja is a bad mother, but that she wants her children to grow up and learn to love their Heimat (homeland), which during WWII was given a negative political term. She wants to make things better for her children so they don't grow up learning all of the corrupt things the her town has been covering up.The Nasty Girl is a clever and great cinematic film that makes you think, rather then feel. As the viewer you walk away learning something.

Das Madchen Schreckliche (The Nasty Girl) is about high school student girl who write an essay of her town during War World II. She gets a violent opposition for search the truth in her essay. The film is based on a true story. I remember seeing the woman on 60 Minutes a couple years ago talking about her life that the film is based. The performances in the movie was great but the ending was weak.