This crushingly intimate drama occupies a space barely larger than a bedroom in the rundown council house where much of the story unfolds. Even on its few ventures outside, the location filming is delivered in tight closeups, the environment beyond the figures little more than colourful smeary blurs of light. You would hardly know it was shot in Glasgow.
The people at the centre of the story are young mother Grace (French actor Déborah Lukumuena, from Divines) and her pubescent daughter Ama (Le’Shantey Bonsu), immigrants from a non-specified country, now living in the aforementioned council flat. We learn that Grace gave birth to Ama at 14 and seems petrified about her daughter leaving the safety of their flat; it’s implied but never stated outright that Ama may have been conceived via rape or incest. At any rate, Grace is troubled when her child points out that she’s growing hair under her arms, which Grace plucks out immediately with tweezers. Later it’s clear poor Ama has no idea what it means when she starts menstruating.
Luckily for Ama, when her period starts she has at least one friend her age, impish classmate Fiona (Liana Turner) who gently explains that the bleeding means she can have a baby and shows her how to make a makeshift sanitary pad with a wad of toilet paper. Fiona also introduces Ama to makeup, dancing and running around shopping centres, all of which sets Grace into an anxiety spiral.
Writer-director Adura Onashile evokes the squelching intimacies between women, be they friends or blood relatives, bonds that can be both thrilling and suffocating. She draws out superb performances from the cast, not just the more experienced Lukumuena, who is terrific, but also the younger actors. On the down side, the writing is less satisfying, a little too hazy and fractured to let the drama build. But the jewel tones of Tasha Back’s cinematography are bewitching, as is the breathy, layered soundtrack by Ré Olunuga.
• Girl is released on 24 November in UK cinemas.
