God Help the Girl is like a pop song that is a bit unshapely and a little silly, but you can’t get it out of your head. It is an ode to the wild-eyed dreams of youth, when the impractical and whimsical still seem possible and important. In other words, it’s about starting a band.
As the masterful pop songsmith behind Belle and Sebastian, Stuart Murdoch has always shown a flare for storytelling. His songs are filled with outcasts and rebels eager to take on the world, or at least find a little peace in it. It’s only natural that his filmmaking debut is at once madcap and melancholy. Serving as writer, director and songwriter, Murdoch sometimes seems to fling everything he can think of at the screen, but there’s no faulting his enthusiasm.
The soundtrack (first recorded in 2009 as a concept album with a different cast) features a couple songs from Belle and Sebastian’s 2006 modern classic The Life Pursuit, but most of the material is unique, focusing around the world of Eve (Emily Browning), a mentally fragile young woman who has felt so much from other people’s music and now wants to make her own.
The film takes place over a summer in Glasgow, during which Eve makes a couple friends and gradually starts a band. The narrative doesn’t take on a tidy band-forms-and-takes-over-the-world structure. Indeed, the actual band-related activities come in such fits and starts that it may frustrate or confuse viewers who come in with those expectations. But God Help the Girl is as much about youth and friendship as it is about music. These kids feel as if they have all the time in the world, and if a canoe trip sounds like a better idea than honing a song, so be it.
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