Textual Analysis-About A Girl

About a girl is directed by Brian Percival in 2001, it was very successful winning a BAFTA and 4 other nominations.

Straight away from the opening credits it suggests to us that the story is about a teenage girl due to the font used to open the film as the texting suggests her age. It then cuts to a girl singing Britney Spears’s Stronger by herself in a field, the lyrics in this song could represent how she is feeling. Here in the field she can be her self, we can tell this because she puts effort into the dance and song. Singing is her dream.













It then cuts into a close up of the girls face as she directly addresses the camera walking down the canal in her white coat. Straight away we establish her class, the canal is grubby with graffiti on the back walls, we then see her mum trying to win money with a scratch card. We have already noticed the stereotypes used, very working class living in a poor place with there single mum and sister. During her monologue she persists in talking down her mother while singing her dads praise, it seems she does not notice how hard her mum tries to look after her and her sister. Her dad is the good parent as he buys her ice cream with sprinkles. However, the director then uses a long shot of the girl and her dad sitting in the local café, which to the audience contradicts what the girl has just said. He appears to be taking more interest in the newspaper he is reading than he is his daughter. It then cuts back to monologue down the were she states her Dad is always ‘dead interested’ in what she is doing, followed by a long shot of her standing by the goal post as she watches her Dad play football, this is what she calls ‘quality time’. This shows that she very much likes her Dad and wants a relationship with him, but he is too interested in playing football. We also see that she again is listening to music, practising to be star.



The next shot is of her sitting outside the pub were her Dad takes her to get a Coke a crisps, the camera zooms out to show her isolation. This also shows how interested her Dad is as he has most likely left her outside the pub whilst he is enjoying his after match Beer. The bench that she is sitting on is concrete, old, messy. This is similar to the surroundings. She is in a concrete jungle full of housing estates, factories and a canal. Typically working class.

There is then cutting between her walking along the canal and her with her friends on the bus. She is describing them entering a competition and making there own group. On the Bus the are practising again to a Britney Spears song, notice that this is the only time in the short film that we see her without the white coat on. Whilst they are sitting on the bus there young age is also represented here with a stereotype as they are sitting at the back of the bus where the ‘cool’ kids sit.

Carrying on her monologue down the canal she continues to talk down her mum saying she doesn’t do enough and spends all her money on ‘ciggies’. Although here again we cut to her mum trying to win on a scratch card which clearly shows that she wants a better life for them. The girl is talking about her dream, to live in a top end flat in London when she is famous, were she will be eating in top end restraunts drinking her Bacardi breezers and coke.




The canal in the next shot is full of rubbish, filled with old chairs and peoples waste. The background also shows how old neglected the area is with abandoned building. The long shot of the girl at the end of the canal shows her sitting there by herself with the white plastic bag she is carrying. The white used could portray innocence. It makes her stand out from the rundown surroundings.

We then hear the story about her neighbours dog, who was drowned in the canal. It then switches to a high angle shot of it. This infers that the canal is something dangerous. That it has power, water can also be used to suggest danger as nature is unpredictable and fierce. The girl then chucks the white bag that she had been carrying into the canal and walks away, she addresses that she has become well good at hiding things recently.


The director then uses a low angle shot as a baby drifts out of the bag down into the depths of the canal. We then see her walking away singing to herself totally unphased by what she has done. To her all that mattered was the dream of becoming a pop star.

We can now argue that instead of the white meaning innocence, it could have meant psycho which is another connotation of the colour white. Throughout the film the controlling ideas’ have been the canal and the girl. The film relied on monologue, and used foreshadowing. The dark miserable weather is normally something depressing, it has a psychological effect on the audience.