A vivid coming-of-age drama from France, Celine Sciamma’s “Girlhood” (now at the Gene Siskel Film Center) keeps a close eye on its beautiful, vulnerable protagonist, played by Karidja Toure. Living in a Parisian suburb, amid housing projects and all manner of risky behavior, Marieme hasn’t the grades for high school and doesn’t like her vocational school options. Life at home is abusive, with an alternately sullen and violent older brother. Her younger sisters still have a spark to them, as does Marieme. The film poses a question: Can the spark survive?
In her third feature, writer-director Sciamma pushes Toure’s character in and out of precarious situations to see how she’ll respond, adapt and change. If that sounds manipulative, well, all coming-of-age stories risk manipulation; it’s a question of how you finesse it. Working with a widescreen color palette as bold and bright as Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood” was homey, hazy and easygoing, “Girlhood” has no interest in documentary realism. Nor does Sciamma turn the screws of melodrama. She stakes out her own middle ground, effectively.
Marieme falls in with a trio of tough girls, and soon the quartet becomes fast friends. Through the film, Sciamma shows us the gratifying friendships and the threats to Marieme’s well-being as all part of the same teeming package. Assa Sylla, Lindsay Karamoh and Marietou Toure play her newfound makeshift family, and if there are four more interesting faces on screen at the moment, let me know.
“You’re just like him,” Marieme’s younger sister says to Marieme after she slaps her in the face. It’s a crossroads moment, and the tension feels genuine. Throughout “Girlhood” the malignant energy that results from having a scary home life never entirely dissipates. Yet the story allows for a full array of emotional peaks and valleys. At one point, in a dreamlike sequence, the four girls sing along to Rihanna’s “Diamonds” in an ordinary hotel room — a room that Sciamma and her cinematographer, Crystel Fournier, transform into a cool blue wonderland.
It’s not a new idea, this sort of fantasy release, but it’s brought off successfully here. As Marieme wonders what to do with her sweet, patient boyfriend and, later, with her drug dealer/protector, “Girlhood” turns into a series of tests the protagonist must pass in order to find herself safely home. Wherever home is.
“Girlhood” – 3 1/2 stars
No MPAA rating
Running time: 1:52; in French with English subtitles
Plays: Friday-Thursday at the Siskel Film Center
