God Help the Girl
Amplify | Release Date: September 5, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
58
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
11
Mixed:
13
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
89
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesSep 10, 2014
God Help the Girl is not so perfectly crafted, but the promise – oh, the promise is irresistible. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranSep 4, 2014
No one comes out and says that music is the language of the soul, but no one has to. We see it happening right before our eyes. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerOct 9, 2014
God Help the Girl is about aspirations and goals, musical or otherwise. Murdoch is working some things out here, gracefully on the whole. His own band has toggled between frail sincerity and pop mastery itself over the years. The former is more endearing and original, but it’s not for everyone. Which is how I might describe his film. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaSep 12, 2014
The film's conceit - mopey strangers meet, form a band, and take to the dance halls - has a Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney let's-put-on-a-show innocence, and exuberance. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskySep 3, 2014
God Help The Girl is, in other words, a spotty movie — sometimes silly, sometimes dead serious. It is, however, nobly spotty — inconsistent in a way contemporary productions rarely are, its shortcomings the result of an excess of creative energy, rather than a lack thereof. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghSep 18, 2014
It's adorable. It's also very thin. There's a disconcerting literalism to the songs' dramatic representation that chokes the drama. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriSep 5, 2014
It’s an inviting, approachable world that Murdoch creates for us — still a total fantasy, of course, but one with a veneer of plausibility. Get on its wavelength, and you’ll be utterly charmed. Don’t, and you’ll run screaming from the theater. Read full review
70
Village VoiceSerena DonadoniSep 2, 2014
Browning captures Eve's weariness and enthusiasm, and her lovely voice and crisp delivery gives Murdoch's labored lyrics a vulnerable immediacy. Read full review
67
IndieWireKatherine KilkennyJan 24, 2014
God Help the Girl doesn’t quite succeed in convincing the viewer to toss conventional character development out the window, it still has its moments. Read full review
64
Film.comJames RocchiJan 26, 2014
Murdoch’s film is fraught with ambition and aspiration, but a little thin on talent and technique. Read full review
63
New York PostKyle SmithSep 3, 2014
The gorgeous heartache of songs by the group Belle and Sebastian gives God Help the Girl its dreamy appeal, but thanks to a poky story line it essentially amounts to a series of music videos. Read full review
60
Time OutCatherine BraySep 3, 2014
The whole phantasmagorical enterprise is so sweetly confident that it just about gets away with its entirely casual approach to believability. Read full review
60
CineVueEd FranklSep 3, 2014
Even if Murdoch's directorial style is at times off-putting - the dance routines oscillating wildly from charming to naff - it's hard not to be taken in by trips into Glasgow's backstreet gig venues and the type of Victorian splendour seen on screen too rarely. Read full review
60
The DissolveNoel MurraySep 3, 2014
While Murdoch exhibits masterful control in a recording studio, he isn’t a natural-born filmmaker. Much of God Help The Girl feels haphazardly stitched together, with pieces missing or placed in the wrong order, as though Murdoch didn’t get all the footage he needed. Read full review
60
EmpireIan FreerAug 18, 2014
As Marmite-y as Stuart Murdoch's music, you'll find it either winningly charming or irritatingly fey. Either way, its warmth shines through. Read full review
60
The GuardianXan BrooksJan 24, 2014
God Help the Girl comes loose and easy, verging on the slipshod. It's warm and generous, verging on the sentimental; a film that crystallises the best and worst of Belle and Sebastian's songwriting skills. Read full review
50
Boston GlobePeter KeoughOct 2, 2014
When it comes to writing and directing movies, though, Murdoch has some work to do. “Girl” meanders narratively and with random chronology, some scenes playing like tepid music videos, others as unhelpful efforts at exposition, some as strained drama, and some as the genuine, funny, spontaneous interactions of gifted young people. Read full review
50
Washington PostStephanie MerrySep 11, 2014
The tone is all over the map, switching from fantastical one moment to naturalistic the next... It all gives God Help the Girl a disconnected, haphazard feel. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMichael OrdonaSep 11, 2014
The fine cinematography by Giles Nuttgens ("Hallam Foe," "Dom Hemingway") infuses warmth and texture. It conveys the laze of summer and juxtaposes the cold of the hospital with the not-quite-real palette of waking fantasy. However, also like the music, the filmmaking habitually meanders. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennySep 5, 2014
The movie doesn’t quite make it to two hours, but my patience was tried pretty much any point at which the movie went a long stretch without a song. Read full review
50
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisSep 4, 2014
Belle and Sebastian fans will be fully sated; everyone else might feel as if they’d consumed a meal consisting entirely of meringue. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChris CabinSep 2, 2014
Stuart Murdoch clearly knows quite a bit about crafting pop tunes, but the film's consideration of the work of songwriting is totally flippant. Read full review
50
VarietyDennis HarveyJan 24, 2014
It will be up to viewers to decide whether God Help the Girl is ingratiatingly naive art, gratingly inept art, or a bit of both. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJul 17, 2014
The wistful pleasures are stretched awfully thin at almost two hours in a film that blurs the line separating self-irony from tiresome self-consciousness. Read full review
33
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezJan 24, 2014
A major gaffe, God Help The Girl finds a great artist taking on a huge challenge and stumbling painfully on its ambition almost every step of the way. Read full review
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