"God Help the Girl", and the Problematic Conversation About Twee

God Help the Girl is one of the most delightful films released this year. This will make, and has made, more than few skeptical about its actual quality.

The film doesn’t exist in reality. It is a pop song as film. It is an ode to an endless summer. It has an aesthetic of youthful romanticism. It has the silly, playful improvisatory feel of early Godard and Richard Lester. It has very little plot and an abundance of charms. 

Films like God Help the Girl, quirky, self-consciously whimsical affairs, tend to get written off. We bulk them together under the label of “Twee”. These films, admittedly, are easy to nitpick. This is because they don’t run on plot or traditional logic or even typical storytelling or structuring. But nitpicking misses the point entirely about these films. They’re about a mood and a tone; a perspective regarding the world and how to live in it. Yes, sometimes in their concern for creating an artificial, fantastical vision, they can sometimes feel a little too hollow or empty. 

But “Twee” has become a dismissive term. It has become a blanket statement. It allows for the ability to refuse to actually fully engage with a work. There are elements to twee that we just aren’t reckoning with. There are certainly things to twee and its aesthetic that can be questionable. It can be indulgent and disconnected from reality to a fault (Michael Gondry is a prime example for this sort of criticism, see especially in regards to his most recent film Mood Indigo). But there’s a more problematic underlying motivation for criticizing these works. Twee is defined by being feminine, and, by virtue of this, we tend to take it less seriously. Feminine works, to oversimplify, typically focus on things like emotion and character over plot. They also tend towards stories that are more low-key and less propulsive.

Masculine works, by contrast, are more deliberately self-serious and dark, and this quality has begun to infect not only our films but also the way we talk about them. We have begun to equate gritty and dark with important and good. The recent evolution of this is often tied back to Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, which were so popular and successful that their style and tone started to seep into many major mainstream works. But that serious, gritty tone doesn’t work well for every type of story and every type of film. For instance, Man of Steel very consciously apes that tone and style, and it is an absolute mess because it takes a style that was great for one character and utilizes it for another character who required a different touch. Man of Steel was one of the most divisive films of last year. The critical split was largely drawn around what side of the argument over the Nolan Touch and its effectiveness you fell on. 

In regards to both gritty revisionism and twee, we have failed to create nuance in using and defining our terminology (James Parker in his review of Marc Spitz’s book Twee notes that Spitz’s definition for it is so broad as to be impossible to pin down), and we’ve started to do it at the same time that filmmakers are widely using these popular, though loosely defined, styles and sometimes inappropriately for the given material. We don’t necessarily always have the best grasp over what “twee” means, and thus we use it a little carelessly, not to mention mean-spiritedly. One stereotypical conception of it is Zooey Deschanel Incarnate. But looking on Deschanel’s filmography as a whole suggests that this is a reductive argument and perspective. It’s far more diverse than just “twee”. Almost Famous, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and even The Happening paint a different picture. 

Even accounting for a seemingly crucial, oft-cited example of Deschanel’s twee-ness, (500) Days of Summer, demonstrates cracks in the designation and its sloppy, needlessly scornful use. It’s worth noting that much of Deschanel’s labeling as twee centers on her playing supposed Manic Pixie Dream Girl roles. But (500) Days of Summer is a valuable critique of the manic pixie dream girl archetype. The film is told entirely from the perspective of protagonist Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), and the film slowly reveals how Tom’s failure to imagine Summer as a human being rather than an Ideal erodes their relationship. All the supposed empty whimsy of (500) Days of Summer actually speaks to far more meaningful, thoughtful ideas. It isn’t merely quirk for its own sake. So, to some extent, we evidently haven’t really fully considered the implications of the term twee. (Another consistent piece to the argument of Deschanel as a prime example of twee is her tv series New Girl. But, in many ways, that series is a compelling argument in favor of twee as both a life philosophy and a storytelling style).

But on a more lighthearted note, I just find that we could use more twee in our films now – specifically what I desire in relation to it I’ll get into in a moment. I’m tired of all these dark, gritty films. When they’re done well, they can be really good. But our obsession with this tone and style of storytelling has limited the types of stories we tell and the possibilities of the ways in which we tell said stories. These dark, gritty films are about how terrible, insecure and corrosive the world and the people in it are. They are about breaking things down rather than building things up. (A good example from television is the contrast of Breaking Bad and Parks and Recreation. Both are excellent, but both also have vastly different views of the world. We have plenty of what the former was attempting scouring the television landscape and not enough of what the latter aims for).

I think we tend to devalue things that are light and feel-good. We prize drama more highly than comedy, for one thing. And we value darker, sadder responses to works over responses of joy and contentment. Yet when we go to the movies we wish to watch over and over again, that we turn to when we’re feeling down, those are films that are about lifting us up. So why do we treat them as lesser and or less valuable? 

Which brings me back, finally, to God Help the Girl. The immediate reaction to it is perhaps to treat it as frivolous. The film, written and directed by Belle and Sebastian member Stuart Murdoch, is about three twenty-somethings who decide to make a band. The film centers on them performing a number of infectiously feel-good indie pop rock numbers. Murdoch emphasizes a vibe, a sustained mood of carefree buoyancy. There is loosely a plot center -- Eve (Emily Browning) is recovering from an eating disorder and has a possible romantic relationship with flat-mate James (Olly Alexander) -- but it’s just a point from which to pivot off of to create a bunch of musical sequences.

Those musical sequences are indelible. As shot by Murdoch, matching the winsome, catchy rhythms of the songs, they craft an irresistibly effervescent experience. There is little else here though. As previously noted, it’s the film equivalent of a pop song. While inhabiting its cheery, lovely airtime, it doesn’t matter that it’s all ultimately a little airy and light. It makes you feel good and that’s what ultimately matters.

And yet, it isn’t total escapism. Murdoch understands that the best songs are created by infusing life experiences into the music, some that aren’t always pleasant, and transforming them into something beautiful even transcendent. The songs written and performed by the band members are based on difficult, trying life experiences, especially Eve’s struggles with mental illness – and, even more accurately, Murdoch’s life experiences. We take for granted that quiet sadness often underlines some of the best pop songs, just as we take for granted that twee is one of many available, not necessarily bad, options for telling a story. God Help the Girl is far too personal and intimate a film to be written off; it’s filtered far too thoroughly through Murdoch’s perspective to be seen as just mere fluff. Ultimately, twee, at its best, consistently masks this sort of deeper emotion and more personal visions through its artifice of whimsy and cute affectation. (Indeed, Wes Anderson is one of the most notable examples of twee and also one of our best working directors. His films are a perfect example of quirky artifice that conceals troves of melancholy).

We need more films like God Help the Girl. It isn’t perfect, but it’s perfect at what it’s trying to do, and not enough films are trying to what it attempts. It’s an invitation to temporarily depart reality. To escape into someone else’s vision of what the world is like. It’s a pleasant one. I think I’ll put it on repeat.