“A Girl Like Grace” comes on strong, but lacks the experience or perspective to properly convince, much like the sexually blossoming teen girl at its core. Ty Hodges’ coming-of-age drama has some novelty in that its female protagonist is Haitian-American, but the film is hampered by a storyline that is overly broken and confusing message.
It might end up being remembered for introducing leading lady Ryan Destiny, a thesp to keep an eye on.
Grace (Destiny) lives in a Mississippi trailer park with her trainwreck mother Lisa (Garcelle Beauvais) and feels like an outcast at school, where she is taunted by the ringleader (Raven-Symone) of a mean-girls clique and mourns the recent suicide of her best friend Andrea (Paige Hurd).
The circumstances behind Andrea’s death are presented as a mystery, which the film gradually unravels with the entrance of her attractive elder sister Share (Meagan Good), who takes Grace under her wing and pushes her to embrace her sexuality.
While the screenplay (co-written by Hodges and Jacquin Deleon) originally suggests that Grace and Andrea were more than platonic friends, Grace’s glum conduct at school is motivated by something both more traditional and less complex.
The picture devolves into a depressing run of hook-ups as the truth is revealed, eventually derailing totally by falling into the tired old trap of a young woman’s sexual exploration culminating to exploitation and abuse.
Destiny’s dedicated lead performance is alone responsible for the film’s ability to transcend its tropes. Though she’s generally cast as meek, pouty, or sultry, the naturally captivating actress not only stands out among her more experienced co-stars, but also hints to an interior life that the film seems too preoccupied to investigate.
Hodges’ overcrowded film appears to be striving for something close to Lee Daniels’ “Precious,” with its social-pariah lead, issues of sexual abuse and financial difficulties, voiceover narration, and actors eager to look less than gorgeous on camera.
Everything from casting choices to narrative shortcuts undermine any attempt at authenticity or cinematic poetry, and the end result resembles a movie for teen cabler ABC Family.
For a low-budget film, tech credits are standard, but d.p. Even when the storey falls flat, Teddy Smith makes a strong effort to keep the film visually amusing. In this way, the video brilliantly captures one of Grace’s self-empowerment platitudes: “Are you even alive if you’re gorgeous without a soul?”
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