A Girl Like Her (2015)

1-13. Alexandra Danielle "Lexi" Ainsworth (Jessica Burns)"A Girl Like Her" effortlessly achieves what "13 Reasons" reaches for so stridently – and expensively -- but will never attain, thanks to the award-caliber talent of its star, Lexi Ainsworth, who takes a decent film to the next level with her total mastery of one of the more difficult raw skills in an actor's repertoire: the ability to cry on cue. One need not have seen her as the abused girlfriend of Keifer on General Hospital (where she dances on the career dumpster of the writers who fired her in 2011), and later the stalked-by-her-lesbian college professor, Parker, which netted her a daytime Emmy. One should not see her fine performance in So This Is Christmas, a film with drug dealers and a shootout never crossing path with Eric Roberts, though her turn as Sara Cowan, where she is bleached blonde to play a character whose real-life counterpart was brunette, in the so-bad-it's-good Death Clique 2014 is good for a dark laugh. Lexi's character's parents were murdered while she was away making out with her boyfriend on an episode of Criminal Minds, and she was even threatened with violence by Courteney Cox on Cougartown. Put simply, Lexi knows crying like Bo knows football, with an ability not just to cry on cue, but to actually feel and transmit genuine terror, horror, hopelessness, and despondence, and to do so without chewing the scenery as would say a Pomeranian on caffeine.As Jessica Burns in A Girl Like Her, you don't have to ask the protagonist about the validity or extent of her suffering, because she literally wears it on her face, as it seeps through her every vocal intonation and movement, all accomplished so flawlessly that it is like watching Kevin Durant slam-dunk it for Lexi's hometown OKC Thunder. Casting Hunter King as the crumbling villain was also smart, since even mere mortal soapies can play in the emotional big leagues, though not at Lexi's level. Fortunately, she does not outstrip the writing as badly in this film as she has in her other vehicles, and the writers do an excellent job of balancing the story between bully and victim, a creative detour from how I would have steered such a film Lexi is like an NFL player who can run the 40 in 4.25 seconds without breaking a sweat. The formula for stardom is very simple: get a big budget, write a script with a relatable, sympathetic, yet still-hot female lead, tell a story so compelling the audience would cry even reading it, hand her the script, turn on the camera, and get out of her way. This seems to be what director Amy S. Weber did. Having been bullied, and studying the bully mindset for my entire life, I commend her for showing that in any bullying situation, there is a lot of pain to go around, and a lot of children who may be acting intentionally but who really don't understand the harm they are inflicting until it is too late. I learned much later in life over the internet that a grade-school quasi-tormentor of mine had lost his father prior to moving into my building, where my intact family could not have helped his state. ON the other hand, we might not have been friends anyway, and ran in different circles. My friendships-gone-wrong never soured to the depths in this film but some have, especially among girls.The one missing link in the script, however, is that it rushed Jessica from happy-go-lucky student into a nearly-successful suicide attempt, by reinforcing the idea that she was a pure doormat, when most who end their lives or contemplate doing so are not, and cry out rather loudly before actually making an attempt, at least to their inner circle. Despite this scripting limitation, Lexi's Jessica was not the "crybully" who weaponized her victimhood in a manner which makes Thirteen Reasons more akin to Scream, almost a parody of those very-special episodes and movies of the week. You can clearly see Jessica is on the way to attempting suicide, a process so self-absorbing that thoughts shift from revenge to simply ending one's pain.The film's conclusion was expected though still inspiring, in a way that almost had to be made.After seeing this film, and then watching 13 Reasons, I could not stand the self-aware, almost self-mocking latter. Lexi's day will come relatively soon. She is one tear-jerking script and a proper budget away from a major award.

A practical production team made an exploitation movie waiting for some fascist white parents who need to make a display of how much they do for their precious children to buy.It is a movie made by adults for adults, all playing the caring game. The story is dull. The acting is to the assumed level of low budged educational movie. The editing is also unpleasant as it is the waving camera, and I don't mean the hidden camera.Expect to go past half time before the hidden camera footage starts showing.And this run for profits won't make any good. There is nothing for the teens about how to get out. There is nothing for the adults about how to talk with the teens. There is nothing for the state employees of how to help. At best, groups of hysterical individuals will just add even more absurd rules that would make the life in the mandatory school system even harder to bear. And because of the extra pressure, the teens will be lashing out even worse.And, like the writes and producers, nobody will ever care about the actual people. Because on screen there are no people. Only cardboard cutouts for the archetypes that the adults have met. Why is any of them doing any of the things? Everything is open so the emotional crowd would fill in the gaps. Why the attractive girl is doing that? 1. Because is beautiful. And 2. Because ... and the loser white middle class parents will fill in their story of well fed misery.Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch

This was a very well made, realistic & thought provoking film; right until the end. Jessica waking and Aviary being sorry for all that she had done was completely unrealistic. Narcissistic bullies like Aviary don't feel sorry for the pain they cause others. I know, I've been on the receiving end of it and they just grow up to be narcissistic bullying adults.Unfortunately the reality of it is, the bullying continues, people kill themselves because of it and they don't have a miraculous recovery with their bully suddenly seeing the light. The just don't. The ending of this film gives false hope to those going through this and fuel to the bully's fire.Its not that I wanted a depressing or sad ending, I just wanted a realistic one which fitted with the rest of the film, not a 'Hollywood Happy' one.And to anyone being bullied out there. Keep at it. Keep going. You WILL get through it, believe me; I've been there. The best way to get back at them is let them see you NOT reacting. Don't let them see that they are getting to you, no matter how hard it might be. You can do it and you will go on to be an amazing person because of it.

At first I thought the movie was actually a real documentary, only after googling the characters while watching the movie I discovered it wasn't real. The movie is based on a real story and is filmed as if it really happened to the characters in real life, but it is actually totally staged and scripted. I can't get over the fact how amazingly good this film is. I'm not overreacting if I say it is one of the most beautiful eye opening films I've ever seen. The script, the actors, the way of filming, the uncensored footage, everything is exactly how it is supposed to be! I think this movie will get close to home for everyone who has been a victim, a perpetrator or a witness of bullying. This will really wake everybody up, force them to take a look around and to stand up for themselves and/or others. It will hopefully even make bullies realize what they are doing to others, how they make them feel, hopefully causing them to stop doing so.I rate this movie a 10 out of 10 because I can't find a single thing that is wrong. It doesn't only tell one story, the one of the bullied child like usual, but also the one of the bully and the ones of the people that are close to them. It shows an overall, but nevertheless detailed, picture of the daily life in a high school for the bullied/bullies/witnesses. Not only in an American high school, but in almost every high school in every country. The documentary vibe the movies has, makes it even easier to envision how common this is nowadays, and how hurtful it can be. It happens a lot, most of the time without parents or teachers even noticing it. This film gives the perfect representation of the nowadays high schools and it will open up the eyes of a lot of people not noticing how terrible the lives of bullied people can be!