This movie is supposed to be a commentary or criticism somehow of the exploitation of children, according to the director.
Instead, it is a movie about a Muslim girl wanting to break away from her traditions and suffocating family, and join a dance crew called the Cuties, because she watches videos of adults twerking and thinks that if she imitates what she sees on the internet, she will escape.
Through the help of a few well-placed plot points, she gets in to the Cuties, with the help of the glasses-wearing leader who befriends her, in typical 11 year old girl fashion.
Then the film starts to show signs of possible trouble up ahead, only to completely derail thirty minutes before it's over. Whatever intentions the director has for what she has made, they are poorly delivered here, leaving me scratching my head as to what all the fuss is about.
How can the claim be made about exploitation of children, if the only person doing it is the director herself?
The characters in the plot make their own choices. Nobody is forcing these girls to behave the way they are acting, they just CHOOSE to. Nobody is threatening the girls in some way, or attempting to gain something insidious from their performances.
In fact, the point is continually reinforced again and again throughout the film that these children are being outright REJECTED by those that see them behaving this way, from the teenagers they try to lie to about their age, to the audience members that watch them twerk on stage. Nobody in the film is giving any kind of support to the girls' behavior.
So I'm lost as to the purpose behind it, to the delivery of it, and to all the backlash that's happened as a result. This is a movie about the foolishness of childhood, and the influence of the world on that childhood, if left unsupervised. It's less a matter of tragedy and more an attempt at telling a story about how growing up is hard when you're stuck between the age of being a kid and becoming a young adult.
I don't know where the offense is supposed to be, save all the very questionable shots that the director makes of the girls as they dance. If she was trying to make a point here, she missed completely.
Either way, I can't give you a good reason to watch it.
Instead, it is a movie about a Muslim girl wanting to break away from her traditions and suffocating family, and join a dance crew called the Cuties, because she watches videos of adults twerking and thinks that if she imitates what she sees on the internet, she will escape.
Through the help of a few well-placed plot points, she gets in to the Cuties, with the help of the glasses-wearing leader who befriends her, in typical 11 year old girl fashion.
Then the film starts to show signs of possible trouble up ahead, only to completely derail thirty minutes before it's over. Whatever intentions the director has for what she has made, they are poorly delivered here, leaving me scratching my head as to what all the fuss is about.
How can the claim be made about exploitation of children, if the only person doing it is the director herself?
The characters in the plot make their own choices. Nobody is forcing these girls to behave the way they are acting, they just CHOOSE to. Nobody is threatening the girls in some way, or attempting to gain something insidious from their performances.
In fact, the point is continually reinforced again and again throughout the film that these children are being outright REJECTED by those that see them behaving this way, from the teenagers they try to lie to about their age, to the audience members that watch them twerk on stage. Nobody in the film is giving any kind of support to the girls' behavior.
So I'm lost as to the purpose behind it, to the delivery of it, and to all the backlash that's happened as a result. This is a movie about the foolishness of childhood, and the influence of the world on that childhood, if left unsupervised. It's less a matter of tragedy and more an attempt at telling a story about how growing up is hard when you're stuck between the age of being a kid and becoming a young adult.
I don't know where the offense is supposed to be, save all the very questionable shots that the director makes of the girls as they dance. If she was trying to make a point here, she missed completely.
Either way, I can't give you a good reason to watch it.