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The Girl in the Book (2015)
  
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Director:
Marya Cohn |
COUNTRY
USA |
GENRE
Drama |
NORWEGIAN TITLE
- |
RUNNING
TIME
86 minutes |
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Producer:
Kyle Heller
Gina Resnick |
Screenwriter:
Marya Cohn |
Review
Poetic, semi-controversial tale from the fashionable world of
writers and editors, in which Emily VanCamp and Ana Mulvoy-Ten play
respectively an older and a younger version of the title character
Alice – a daughter of two neglectful literary agents who as a teen
finds herself becoming a little more than just a muse for a
successful, middle-aged European novelist (Michael Nyqvist).
Although writer/director Marya Cohn cannot hide her fascination for
the milieu she's portraying or Mulvoy-Ten's alluring, Lolitaesque
sensuality, she's not out to attract by romanticizing the relation
between young Alice and the older writer even the slightest. Which
is why, I suppose, the trained creep Nyqvist (Tillsammans)
was recruited. He does well in getting the inappropriateness of his
character's actions across, but both he and the rest of the film is
arguably at its best in dealing with the surroundings and aftermath
of the events. Mulvoy-Ten is a wonderful and amazing-looking young
talent, but her work here doesn't really match Cohn's direction, and
certainly not VanCamp's overly pragmatic performance. It's almost as
if Alice and Alice isn't played by the same actress (sic!), which of
course was sort of the point from Cohn's point of view, but although
the contrast between the two actresses' performances makes for a
valid thematic point of view and pushes Cohn's narrative style of
switching back and forth in time to the forefront, it doesn't do the
film any favours when it comes to making us empathize with and
getting under the skin of the Alice character.
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