An acting tour de force, and a well-meaning improvisational experiment, the raggedy, low-budget drama "Girls Town" is bolstered by a few powerhouse moments as it explores the hard life of inner-city teenage girls. And that may explain the prize it won at the Sundance Film Festival.
But the film often seems pointless and labored or overly contrived - and it certainly suffers from foul-language overload.
When an 80-minute movie feels long, you know you're in trouble.
And that's too bad, since the primary players here - Bruklin Harris, Anna Grace and especially Lili Taylor - are quite good as a trio of dispirited youths who decide to actively confront society at large and male chauvinist pigs in particular. (And in this film that would be every man on the face of the Earth.)
Plot is secondary here, but the driving force is a good one, as discussions of the tough life lessons these kids must confront all too early spring from revelations they find in the diary of a friend who has committed suicide.
One of the film's stronger scenes comes while they are reading from the journal, as they discover that their friend was once raped. This causes the girls to become more serious and reflective than they are used to. As the confessional mood continues, one of the girls admits that she was date-raped.
Her friends are outraged, but sharing this information brings them closer together. And eventually, spurred on by the aggressive Taylor, they decide to exact revenge. The opportunity arrives when they see the rapist's sleek, classic Cadillac in a parking lot and scratch it with keys, paint the word "rapist" on the hood and throw a rock through the passenger window.
There isn't a lot of dimension to the characters as written, and sometimes the improvisational tone undermines our ability to get to know them. But Taylor certainly stands out as a young mother trying to raise a child while still going to school.
Every now and then the child's abusive father shows up to cause trouble, and since the girls feel so empowered by getting away with auto-mobile vandalism, they decide to get this guy by tearing apart his apartment and hocking his goods to buy baby clothes.
The favorite hangout is a deserted baseball dugout, where they further discuss life issues. But less effective are a series of encounters in the high school lavatory, especially when they get into a phony fight with a lesbian couple.
"Girls Town" is wildly uneven, though it occasionally hits the mark. And certainly a major plus is the presence of the ever-reliable Taylor, though she tends to blow everyone else off the screen. Taylor is so much better than the material that she inadvertently over-whelms the entire project. (The three actresses get screenwriting credit, since much of their dialogue came through improvisational readings.)
As an acting exercise, it's a home run. But as entertainment, it's more like a double, too often meandering aimlessly and straying from the point for reels at a time.
"Girls Town" is rated R for non-stop profane and vulgar language, some violence and some marijuana smoking.