Dirty Girl

For a debut film, Dirty Girl is fun to watch, filled with stellar performances and reminds people over the age of 19 why it's sooo awesome to not be a teenager anymore.

This is a fearless performance but one that doesn't forget to be genuine and real, Danielle's emotional transformation stirring, oftentimes powerful and, in my opinion, difficult to forget.

Dirty Girl isn't. Sorry, but it's just faux grime, a thin layer of bad behaviour that wipes clean with a two-ply tissue to reveal the real movie beneath - all shiny sentimentality.

Dirty Girl broadcasts its intent to be edgy and subversive - poking fun throughout at small-town, conservative attitudes toward sex and morality - without ever achieving subversion.

The movie is all over the place, searching for an identity that proves almost entirely elusive.

If your sensibility is pure trashy camp, don't expect anyone not to laugh when you try to be earnest.

Growing up gay in 1980s Oklahoma could not have been easy, but writer-director Abe Sylvia and the cast of his debut feature Dirty Girl make it look like a helluva lot of fun.

Dirty Girl is an off beat gem that's well worth the bidding war it inspired at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival.

...l feels like a Hollywood vision of the way the ignorant and unwashed comport themselves. It feels ugly and it made me sad.

A funny, poignant if slightly uneven coming-of-age story.