This film is difficult to watch for someone who is not in their teens or early 20's anymore. If you were a wild one at this age, it's not hard to see from the opening lines of the movie where the film is headed. Leah is every parents worst nightmare. Having been a nightmare myself it's very difficult to watch her spiral into the dumpster, continuously crawling back out again. She is that friend everyone is sick of babysitting. She seemingly has no limits or lines she will not cross. For this reason, she is taken advantage of by some of the world's dirtiest scumbags. There is, to my surprise, only one rape scene. (unless you count her disgusting boss) It is not overdone and is exactly what happens to women under the influence every single day. I can feel that the film was directed and written by a woman. If you are a woman who has been in any of these scenarios you will feel as if you were right there with Leah. The drinking paired with the sex, drugs, and alcohol all feel true to life. The rape is accurately and realistically played out. The drug dealer, Blue, tells her early on that he doesn't mess with cocaine yet for the duration of the movie he seems to have no problem with her snorting it all away. That part didn't make sense to me. He stated his boundaries surrounding her interest in drugs, outside of MJ, but then he was seemingly okay with it later. Her boss played by, Justin Bartha, was well done. Although a smaller role Bartha played the part well. He is someone in a position of power who constantly plays on her naivety and addiction. It is incredibly grueling to watch. I wanted to turn the movie off half way into it. I'm glad I didn't. If every drama were pleasant to watch, they wouldn't be true to life. White girl is just that. True to the real world and the unfortunate reality that many of us women face in our lifetime. Some reviewers stated how it seems unrealistic that someone would try so hard to free a man they just met from prison. It is not that far fetched when you look at how impulsive all of her other decisions were leading up to this point in the film. It is not an easy watch but it's definitely worth it. I hope to see more of Wood's work in the future.

During the publicity blitz for this movie director and writer Elizabeth Wood made a big deal about how this was based on her real life experiences, how unshocking it was (while simultaneously playing up that their were tons of sex scenes and nudity to play up the shock factor) and how unfair it was that white women like herself were able to dabble in drugs for fun in college, while their Latino and black peers were treated like criminals for far lesser offences. Now all these things led me to expect a much different movie, but watching White Girl I was almost bored by how tame and basic it was and how little it had to say beyond that one message. Morgan Saylor plays Wood's alter ego Leah. Moving into a cheap apartment in a bad (i.e. predominately Latino) neighbourhood with her friend Katie, Leah is immediately attracted to some young Latino men she sees hanging around her street corner. One night, bored and out of weed she introduces herself to them. When they refuse to sell to her she later meets one of them, named Blue, and invites him up to her apartment. They quickly fall in love and Leah helps him upsell his cocaine at exorbitant prices to her wealthy white friends. Of course this all predictably goes bad and Leah lands in a dangerous situation where she feels compelled to save Blue, who has landed in prison. The strange thing is how boring and formulaic this all feels. I watched a scene with Morgan Saylor bouncing around in a rave with her top off and all I wondered was when the movie would be over. We watch Leah make manic decision after ridiculous decision always protected by the fact that she is young, middle class and white. But it's hard to feel for a character when she's her own worst enemy and you can see her mistakes coming a million miles away. Another thing is, if Wood was so hell bent on showing how white people have the privilege of getting away with things that their black and brown peers can't telling the story from the perspective of the white girlfriend was a huge mistake. It's too bad, I really had high hopes for this, but it fell short. A more interesting take on millennial hedonism and race and class in America is Spring Breakers which is over the top and ridiculous in a way that packs more punch than White Girl.

Thematically, White Girl is exactly what it says on the tin, it's about race, and about gender. It's an attempt at outlining the main character's naivety and her ability to come out of it unscathed as a result of her privilege. An idea that, if it wasn't already obvious enough, Elizabeth Wood beats us over the head with in the scene where Leah has dinner with the lawyer.White Girl is unapologetically feminist, and being directed by a woman, it gets a lot of this right, Leah isn't a trope, she's not a stereotype, she's a naive young girl who makes a lot of really, really terrible decisions. But while this is the basis of her character, the protagonist, as well as the rest of the people in this film, are only explored on a surface level. Meaning that it's difficult to care about what they do, or what happens to them. Especially Leah, who knows that as a pretty white girl, there's a lot that she can get away with, and come out unharmed. And we know that too.Not only is White Girl difficult to get pulled in to as a result of its lack of a real sense of consequence, it also seems to push us away with its sloppy attempt at shock cinema. Every other scene is someone snorting coke, getting their tits out, or puking their guts up (is there anyone in this movie who doesn't do drugs?) Some of the comments on sexuality, especially female sexuality are interesting, and there's clearly a lot to say here about the male gaze and the danger of that towards young women, but then the gratuitous sex scenes never stop in an attempt to shock us, and we lose interest.As a drug dealer drama, and a comment on race, Wood hits all of the tropes that we'd expect. Many of the characters are stereotypes, and the writing for the male drug dealers sounds like it was written by my dad, guessing how he things a drug dealer probably talks. The attempts at making the love interest more of a love interest and less of a sex interest were hilarious at times, this movie just couldn't get the dialogue right for those characters at all, it was awkward as hell.White Girl was summed up for me when Doug from The Hangover got cocaine snorted off his dick.4.5/10

So why would a person watch a film with little to no redeeming values? You will ask this question every ten minutes as this film flows deeper and deeper down the sewer line. There are people in this film that you grow to hate and not care for. The female lead exploits her own depravity where you question the basic logic of her behavior. She makes some of the most profound mistakes early on and she keeps making these mistakes throughout the picture. And the theme has been beaten to death and if there was suppose to be any shock value, it was lost in the delivery of the script and the direction. Why should we care about another drug user? Why should we invest in the relationship between her and her boyfriend drug dealer? We've seen this trope too many times to give a damn. The utter stupidity of this girl and the lack of any common sense just screams at you. Every minute that passed by makes you want to just end the film because it gets worse and worse. If this was suppose to be based on true events then I pity the person who's life this was based on because every moment was just so dumb. This was an ugly film where every character was despicable. The boss, the roommate, the boyfriend, the other dope dealers, the cops, the lawyer, there were no characters were you could shine a light on. No one can be this blatantly naive and expect to survive in New York City.