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Holy Girl, The

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 22 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 10 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Foreign
Written by:
Juan Pablo Domenech
Lucrecia Martel
Directed by: Lucrecia Martel
Release Date:
Theatrical: April 29, 2005
DVD: September 6, 2005
Running Time: 106 minutes, Color
Origin: Argentina / Italy / Netherlands / Spain
Language(s): Spanish (with English subtitles)
Summary
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)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: La Ciénaga
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
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...
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 >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 >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 >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Takes a potentially explosive subject and does it subtly and perceptively.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Gets its hooks into you in ways that are hard to explain or to ignore.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Gianni Truzzi
The film's wealth in themes provokes unsettling thought, even as it feels meager in thesis.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
It's a marvelously acted film, driven by a sweaty-palmed, exponentially mounting tension.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
It's a document that suggests that the road to hell is paved with bad communication skills.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
A film that leaves cinephiles breathless and the mainstream movie maniacs scratching their heads.
Read Full Review >New York Post V.A. Musetto
The Holy Girl ends without resolution, but one isn't needed in this mature, thoughtful drama.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
A hauntingly lyrical study of sexual awakening.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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
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!
