Girls Against Boys

Directed by Austin Chick, Girls Against Boys follows two women (Danielle Panabaker’s Shae and Nicole LaLiberte’s Lu) as they embark on a campaign of revenge against the various men that have wronged them. It’s a familiar premise that’s employed to pervasively striking effect by filmmaker Chick, as the director has infused the proceedings with an art-house sensibility that subverts the viewer’s expectations at almost every turn – with the lush, intensely cinematic visuals ranking high on the movie’s list of impossible-to-resist elements. There is, as such, little doubt that Chick’s far-from-subtle screenplay (eg virtually every male character here is, to a certain degree, a reprehensible scumbag) is, for the most part, not as problematic as one might’ve feared, with Kathryn Westergaard’s hypnotic cinematography and Panabaker and LaLiberte’s strong work going a long way towards perpetuating the movie’s irresistibly dreamy atmosphere. The mesmerizing vibe ultimately compensates for the narrative’s rather conventional third act, as Chick lamentably emphasizes the obsessive, Single White Female-like turn in the central characters’ relationship – although, by that same token, it’s worth noting that the movie recovers nicely for a final stretch that’s nothing short of captivating. The end result is a seriously off-the-wall little movie that offers more entertainment value than most efforts of this ilk, with Chick’s audacious modus operandi elevating the material on an impressively consistent basis.

***1/2 out of ****