Tall Girl
When Imogen (5’8”) & I (6’0”) sat down to watch this on a Wednesday evening after enjoying some hand rolled cold rolls we initially began watching the 3 hours of colonial apologism that is Out of Africa (1985), but instead we watched Tall Girl, a decision that I Do Not Regret At All. Tall Girl is the latest disposable, potentially entirely procedurally generated, high-school romance to come from the Netflix Original Team & director Nzingha Stewart (5’9”). The movie follows New Orleans natives Tall Girl Jodi (6’1”), milk crate wielding Short King™ Dunkleman (5’7”), & zany best friend Fareeda (5’5”), as their life is flipped upside down when TALL (6’2”) Swedish exchange student Stig causes quite the social stir and steals Jodi’s heart (because he is taller than her obviously).
For the most part Tall Girl is passable. The camera work is unimaginative and over saturated but it almost gives off a reality TV vibe, the dialogue is predictable but surprisingly the stupid jokes made me laugh a lot. The structure flows nicely (that’s because I am almost certain this movie’s structure came straight out of an algorithm) and it definitely doesn’t drag on for too long but there are some big big issues, in particular the characterisations leave a lot to be desired… Drawing on his experience as co-writer of the horrendously offensive and equally terrible piece of 21st century cinema Jewtopia (2012), Sam Wolfson draws the characters from a bucket of tired tropes and stereotypes which is at best boring and predictable for the viewer but at a deeper level reinforces the intended audiences perception of troubling stereotypes which as a society we should be actively deconstructing. Sadly (but not overly surprisingly) Sam missed this memo.
Although all the characters rarely deviate from their lazy archetypes there is one character who exemplifies this more than any other, and of course it is Dunkleman, a Nice Guy, semi-stalker and more broadly, representative of inceldom more broadly. We are introduced to Dunkleman as he swaggers into chemistry with his signature milk crate in one hand and a throat full of sleazy pick-up lines which he is ready to launch onto our weary and vulnerable protagonist, a practise which is implied to be a regular occurrence since they were kids. Think I am painting a harsh caricature? Well someone had to because the film certainly doesn’t. Dunkleman is painted in a sympathetic light throughout the film despite his obsessive and obnoxious behaviour to the extent that the writer even eventually rewards him with a successful romance arc, reinforcing the belief that years of stalking may actually pay off for someone like Dunkleman. Equally damning expositions of Fareeda, who exists merely to support Jodi and whose “blackness” is typified by her sassy and carefree attitude, or Stig, whose height, beauty, and intelligence is intrinsically linked to his Swedish Heritage. All of these damaging characterisations in isolation may be excusable but given the prevalence of these characters throughout not only Tall Girl but also Jewtopia, I am willing to wager that Sam Wolfson a terrible writer who either uncritically examines his social politics or consciously produces work with reactionary characterisations without considering the consequences.
Tall Girl is a seemingly innocent high-school movie which has a premise so contrived that it undoubtedly gathered hundreds of thousands of views within its first week of release on Netflix, but that is definitely because it is click bait and not because it is good. I imagine Tall Girl will be removed from the Netflix catalogue before the end of the year as it has harvested all the clicks it can and this movie will fall into the archive, however I hope that we do not forget so quickly that in a search for an endless supply of new media Netflix has endorsed exploiting stereotypes for cheap laughs building on an extensive, existing hierarchy of oppression that we should all be opposing. I have watched this movie 3 times and I encourage people to critically engage with this movie as an example of the cheap, data-driven cinema being popularised by online streaming services, but it certainly doesn’t offer a healthy solution for the isolated teens who are the intended target audience. The movie doesn’t fail to satisfy because it is tacky, the movie falls short because it exploits stereotypes for laughs, reinforces existing hierarchies and offers nothing to the cinematic body of knowledge (also 6’1” isn’t even that tall?)
Verdict: 1.5/5
Review by Harry Lees
