The Girl in the Book (2015)

Wonderful Movie

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The Girl in the Book is a movie that covers an interesting subject with interesting characters, but it ends up feeling a bit too on the nose, a bit too by the book. The movie is about Alice (played by Emily van Camp as an adult and Ana Mulvoy Ten as a teenager), a 28 year old struggling assistant book editor with famous agent parents. When Alice is assigned the plum position of helping with the re-release of a novelist's most famous book she reacts with horror rather than glee and in flash backs we learn that the venerated author groomed and then raped her when she was a young teen. Unfortunately there is not a lot to the story other than this. Writer-director Cohn spends a lot of time flashing back and forth between teen and adult Alice, but it's not really a mystery why Alice is the way she is and it's dragged out way too long. Alice's trauma manifests itself in promiscuity, which is interesting, but isn't particularly carefully examined and the happy third act ending comes as the result of a functional relationship she has which isn't particularly well drawn either. Somewhere in this collection of ideas is a good idea, but the movie itself unfortunately takes an all too common trauma and flattens it into a series of clichés that robs it of its emotion and power. An unfortunately mediocre debut from Cohn.

The central character here is clearly a victim, and yet, by the middle of the pic, she is turned into a latter-day Hester Prynne -- without the overt tribal ritual of the Scarlet Letter.She is pilloried for bedding -- or for appearing to bed -- a teenage babysitter at the house of her best friend. Really? I mean, hey, c'mon, like, who hasn't done that? Okay, I'm kidding, maybe it's been months or even years since you've done that, but the point is, this is the place in this moralistic tripe where she becomes some kind of sexual villain?! Don't bother telling that babysitter kid because he's already on the blower telling his entire school how he and a twenty-something done done the deed.And that sad excuse for a boyfriend, the social activist savior? People with good intentions will stand by and weep while you burn at the stake. And why? Because, they will say, "She brought it on herself." And then the weasel will run for public office over your dead body.Who are we talking to here? YOU. You if, when she finally went to confront her seducer, you weren't hollering at the screen, "Kick him in the nuts, honey!"And then hollering, "TWICE!"(If you're a guy, and you can look at Emily VanCamp's face without seeing that she's the victim, then you have earned all your credits to graduate from Gay University...) :-)

A woman aged around 30 finds that her childhood abuser is entering her professional life in the world of book publishing.The screenplay attempts to run two stories concurrently. The story of when Alice was put upon by an older man and the story of her re- confronting this fifteen years later.The problem is that these basics leave the plot with inadequate opportunity for further development later on. The acting and scene- by- scene directing are very good however.Young Alice reacts credibly to the unwelcome advances, but fifteen is a little too old to come to much harm. It would provide more opportunity to the overall plot if a younger girl were being abused at this part of the story as well as more justification to what does happen.In the present-day part of the plot, it is therefore reasonable that the confrontation leads to Alice quickly getting over it after fifteen years of psychological relapse. Unfortunately it means the plot is left short of material and is a bit unbalanced - either she should be deeply scarred or not as opposed to getting over deep disturbance quickly. As a result the film spins out just a few plot elements and just checks out at the end with everything all fine now.

An interesting and believable story taken out from the everyday life. It presents a young woman with a weak character whose life is a mess. She seems to be stressed constantly and not being able to go on with her life because of a deep emotional trauma during childhood.The film explores the emotional aspect of the human character and how getting stuck in the past leads to absence of future. Alice is a synonym of an introvert. Despite her hurried life she makes no progress and seems to be standing still. She works hard but she's not successful. She knows what she wants from life but she doesn't do anything to get it. She has built a wall around herself to shield her from the outside world because she's afraid of it.Aside from the actors love as a two-faced feeling also plays a role in this film. Its first act is to disappoint to a level that everything after that is stereotyped as deceitful and untrustworthy. Then it transitions with the main character to show its other face that can tear down the walls someone intentionally built to prevent the future to come in.This film shows the wonderful things that can happen when you open your mind, stop existing in the past and start living today for the future.