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Generally favorable reviews - based on 14 Critics What's this?

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  • Starring: Ashley Arbaugh, Rachel Blais
  • Summary: Despite a lack of obvious similarities between Siberia and Tokyo, a thriving model industry connects these distant regions. Girl Model follows two protagonists involved in this industry: Ashley, a deeply ambivalent model scout who scours the Siberian countryside looking for fresh faces to send to the Japanese market, and one of her discoveries, Nadya, a 13-year-old plucked from her rustic home in Russia and dropped into the center of bustling Tokyo with promises of a profitable career. After Ashley’s initial discovery of Nadya, they rarely meet again, but their stories are inextricably bound. As Nadya’s optimism about rescuing her family from financial hardship grows, her dreams contrast against Ashley’s more jaded outlook about the industry’s corrosive influence. (First Run Features) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 14
  2. Negative: 0 out of 14
  1. Reviewed by: Christopher Schobert
    Sep 5, 2012
    91
    It deserves to be shown to teenagers, not necessarily as a warning, but at least as an eye-opener: This is how it works, kids. And it ain't pretty.
  2. Reviewed by: Jonathan Crocker
    Sep 4, 2012
    80
    The filmmakers stay back, observing, for a restrained, intimate and poignant result.
  3. Reviewed by: Joshua Rothkopf
    Sep 4, 2012
    80
    Stopping just short of the devastating exposé it might have been (but plenty creepy).
  4. Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    Sep 6, 2012
    60
    There are no supermodels or Cinderellas in this sadly compelling story, just predators and the impoverished dreamers who want to trust them.

See all 14 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. The beauty of this documentary is that it exposes, in a very minimalist fashion, the seedy underbelly of the fashion industry. The most interesting person is the former model cum fashion scout Ashley Arbaugh, who simultaneously derides the fashion industry for the manner in which it uses up young talent, while she scouts and profits off of this same dynamic. This documentary should be required viewing to show the deleterious effects of the modern obsession with appearance. Expand

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