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Holy Girl, The
Fine Line Features

Holy Girl, The reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 75 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
7.9 out of 10
based on 22 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 10 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for some sexual content and brief nudity

Starring Mercedes Morán, Carlos Belloso, Alejandro Urdapilleta, María Alche, Julieta Zylberberg, Mía Maestro, Marta Lubos, and Arturo Goetz

Martel intimately explores the burgeoning sexuality and religious fervor of two teenage girls, Amalia (Alche) and her best friend, Josefina (Zylberberg). Artfully piecing together a mosaic of nuanced details, fragments of sounds, and small moments, Martel creates a potent and specific portrait of adolescent life. (Lita Stantic Producciones SA)


GENRE(S): Drama  |  Foreign  
WRITTEN BY: Juan Pablo Domenech
Lucrecia Martel
 
DIRECTED BY: Lucrecia Martel  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: September 6, 2005 
Theatrical: April 29, 2005 
RUNNING TIME: 106 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: Argentina / Italy / Netherlands / Spain 
LANGUAGE(S): Spanish (with English subtitles) 

Original title "La Niña Santa"

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Superbly cast, evocatively directed.
Read Full Review
91
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
The blessings of salvation have rarely felt so mixed, the parameters of Lolita-hood so elusive - which is exactly Martel's specialty.
Read Full Review
90
The New York Times Dana Stevens
The Holy Girl may occasionally frustrate your desire for clarity and order, but in the end it will reward your patience, and you leave the theater in a state of quiet awe.
Read Full Review
88
Boston Globe Wesley Morris
A collection of beautifully acted encounters, conversations, symbols, and vignettes woven into an evocative and unforgettably surreal garment.
Read Full Review
88
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Takes a potentially explosive subject and does it subtly and perceptively.
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83
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Gets its hooks into you in ways that are hard to explain or to ignore.
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83
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Gianni Truzzi
The film's wealth in themes provokes unsettling thought, even as it feels meager in thesis.
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80
Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
It's a marvelously acted film, driven by a sweaty-palmed, exponentially mounting tension.
Read Full Review
80
Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
A subtle artist and a sharp observer, Martel manages a large cast with an ease that matches her skill at storytelling, within which psychological insight and social comment flow easily and implicitly.
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80
Washington Post Stephen Hunter
It's a document that suggests that the road to hell is paved with bad communication skills.
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80
Village Voice J. Hoberman
Not the least remarkable thing about this deadpan, deceptively haphazard ensemble comedy, a movie as much choreographed as directed, is the way that--at the final moment--the mist simply evaporates.
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80
LA Weekly Scott Foundas
It's a style at once ravishing and mysterious, austere and intimate, carrying with it the suggestion that even cinema may be powerless to invade the most clandestine antechambers of human behavior.
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80
The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Adjusting to Martel's style requires patience, but her indirection pays dividends, culminating in an unforgettable final shot that flies in the face of narrative expectations.
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75
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
A film that leaves cinephiles breathless and the mainstream movie maniacs scratching their heads.
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75
New York Post V.A. Musetto
The Holy Girl ends without resolution, but one isn't needed in this mature, thoughtful drama.
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75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
Young and bold and bristling with talent, Argentine director Lucrecia Martel has continued right where she left off in her feature debut.
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75
San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
A hauntingly lyrical study of sexual awakening.
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70
Variety Deborah Young
A mystifying film that holds the audience in suspense over where it's going and what it might mean for almost its entire running time.
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70
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
As Martel points out, the movie is about the "difficulties" and "dangers" of "differentiating good from evil," and it requires as well as rewards a fair amount of alertness from the viewer.
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63
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Alche has an amazingly expressive face and becomes such a magnetic presence that you'll feel a distinct need to rescue her.
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40
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
In stripping her potentially lurid material of salacious appeal, Martel also makes it murky and oddly arid, a mind-numbing exercise rather than an experience.
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30
Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
Feels like something I know is supposed to be good for me, but that I just couldn't stomach.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 7.9 (out of 10) based on 10 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Marc K. gave it a2:
I rented this movie because of the high MetaCritic score. Instead, I saw one of the worst films of 2005. The first hour of the picture wasn't even necessary...hardly anything happened. And here I was hanging in there for the ending, only to see credits rolling! Other appropriate adjectives to describe this movie: excruciating, pointless and pretentious.

Bud R. gave it a9:
As the opening scene informs us, it's a film about religious education, either misperceived by the adolescent girls or perceived all too well. Director Martell is on the side of the latter, though she doesn't mind a lot of ambiguity. Humid sexuality, violation, transient living, moral upheaval: that, it seems is the nature of the holy and why not?

Joseph G. gave it a9:
I saw the film twice. Itt reminds me of the best of Eric Rohmer films, but the female characters are better drawn in this film.

Bob E. gave it a9:
A film as mysterious as life itself - and sometimes as vague and disjointed. Whatever its lacks as skillful film and smoothly told story, The Holy Girl more than makes up for in stunning images of female sexuality coming into consciousness. The male characters are such tepid and pathetic little housecats one's fear them (in the face of these lionesses!) almost overcomes the disgust or exasperation they continually inspire. The older female characters - the mother, the grandmother, the religion teach - are by turns confused, cynical, despairing or leading a double life in this stultifying, decadent, yet male-dominated world, which is as corrupt and seedy as the old hotel. The Holy Girl is not a sexy film, since there is no male sexual energy to speak of in it, rather is is directly about sexual power of the female kind. its terrible birth and destructive energy when there is nothing to oppose or balance it.

Pat R gave it a9:
This is one of the most original films I've seen in years. This director has a truly unique sensibility. I took off one point only because maybe the film is, for want of a better term, gratuitously obscure. But still--Lucrecia Martel is obviously very gifted and someone to watch for and the acting is uniformly excellent. It's also very funny in a very deadpan style.

MG N. gave it a10:
This is an amazing movie not least becuase of the action taking place at the corner of the screen. It is brutally funny with some large laughs coming from the least expected places (for example: the woman with the disinfectant spray.) I just saw the film and am contempating going for it one more time tomorrow. It's good, real good!

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