Written by Hadley Passela
“Story of A Girl,” Emmy award-winning actor Kyra Sedgwick’s directorial debut, is about a young teenage girl and her resilience towards coping with a traumatic scandal, as well as the ramifications it has on her relationship with her family.
The opening scene begins with Deanna Lambert (played by Ryann Shane), walking her high school halls in a visual tunnel of shame, as she continues to live in a world of slut shaming three years after a video of her first sexual experience, at the age of thirteen, with upper classman Tommy (Tyler Johnson) goes viral. Facebook posts flash across the screen reading, “The Lamberts are trash.” While the film focuses on how she continues to cope with the incident in her sophomore year of high school, Sedgwick’s direction draws a focus on the repercussions her actions have had on her home life, but never addresses the social issues of early teenage sex and social media abuse.
Set in a small, foggy town in Oregon, simplistic cinematic style keeps the characters in the foreground. Deanna’s father, Ray (played by Jon Tenney), has left his professional job due to the incident and is now an embittered mechanic. Her brother and his girlfriend are living in the family’s basement having just had a baby when they should have been in college and her mother remains in a worn-out state of co-dependence towards it all.
Collectively their lives are bleak, which is emphasized by an explosive scene where Ray erupts during an argument, “Well excuse me for wanting something better for you than this!” Sedgwick succeeds in capturing the emotive desperation that fills their home with the tension that Deanna and her brother have of wanting to “get out.”
What brings lighthearted traction to the film, without it being too after school special, is Kevin Bacon’s character, Michael. In a more subdued role than usual, he plays Deanna’s gay boss at the local pizza shop, where he fosters a tender relationship with her while she deals with her father’s emotional abandonment. Bacon’s zany character protects her as she faces her past head on, as the only other employee of the pizza shop is Tommy, who she was filmed having sex with.
As she works desperately to save money to escape her small town life, Bacon solemnly reminds her, “don’t confuse a new place, with a new you,” and encourages her to face herself right where she is. Her growth towards resolving her past is apparent through his endearing guidance, but he is the only character to address her, and the film misses an opportunity to leverage their relationship towards addressing the otherwise unspoken scandal. Tommy appears eerily predatory in his scenes with Deanna and is only held accountable for his actions in a cutesy conversation where she forgives him – not cool.
Shane’s acting, visibly wrought with true emotion, brings forth a bravery to Deanna that upholds the resilience of having withstood the hurt of her Father’s cruel scrutiny. At a pivotal point in the film, Deanna finally hits a breaking point with her father Ray and he is shattered when he comes to realize that his abandonment has caused her to feel that he hates her. Her pain is raw and palpable and gives way towards the mending of their relationship; her performance carries the film’s emotional weight, keeping it grounded and endeared to the audience.
Sedgwick proves to be a very thoughtful and cohesive director, substantiating each character through their personal trials towards a realistic and poignant ending, but fails to address the issues that Deanna faced head on, which are too serious to be swept under the rug.
“Story of A Girl” was produced for Lifetime TV and aired in July 2017.
