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★★★
Directed by Ty Hodges
Starring Ryan Destiny, Meagan Good, Ty Hodges, Raven-Symone
Indie Film Review by Rachel Pullen
Remember when you were young, a teenager to be precise, and everything was so dramatic, a million things could happen in one weekend, where every party was treated like New Years Eve, where ever romance was the love of your life?...Well watching indie film A Girl Like Grace felt like that.
As an audience we have seen it all before, especially when it come to the world of teen dramas, each one promising to be more real than the next, be it from shows such as The O.C and Skins to films such as Thirteen and A Girl Like Her.
Although similar, each dramatic teenage telling documents in their own ways the perils of youth and the dangers that come along with it, and whilst parents watch in horror at the thought that their precious child could be doing the same, the young either do or don’t relate.
A Girl Like Grace is impossible to not relate to, the film documents the life of Grace, played by Ryan Destiny, who starts the story by coming to terms with the loss of her best friend who has recently killed herself due to high school bullying. Subsequently Grace is distant and reserved and so has isolated herself from her peers in school.
It’s not long until she is taken under the wing of her dead friend’s older sister Share, played by Meagan Good and begins to come out of her shell by experimenting with sex, drugs and drinking, but predictably it’s not long until her sexual encounters get her in trouble.
But getting laid and drinking a whisky and coke are not the main problems faced by Grace, don’t forget the token drunk slutty mother who can’t pay rent, the rubbish boyfriend who tells all his jock buddies about their bedroom antics, the bitchy girls at school who bully Grace as well as wearing an unnatural amount of lipstick for girls of their age, and the nerdy friend who is secretly in love with her... to put it simply Grace has a lot of shit going on.
However well Destiny plays this challenging role, it cannot distract from this over saturated plot line, director Ty Hodges has seemed to desperately tick every box of the teen drama genre by cramming every cliché into his film, sadly making for a muddled plot line that quickly becomes unbelievable and unrelatable.
This is a sad state of affairs as A Girl Like Grace touches on some subjects that need to be addressed by a wider audience, such as the matter of teen bullying and the suicides that it can result in, and although Hodges has over-loaded A Girl Like Grace, the film still shows the talent he has for tacking these subjects, just maybe one at a time.
Despite the hectic storyline, A Girl Like Grace is a relatively enjoyable watch which has a great cast who carry their roles confidently and competently throughout.
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