In a world full of politically correct movies tip-toing their movies into safety comes a "daring" movie to discuss in details sexualizing of children in a story told through the eyes of a Muslim girl torn between strict religion and the far opposite. Or so I thought.
Now, if you are looking at yet another post trashing the movie, this is not the place for you. While I will be discussing the explicit parts and the overall pictures, this is not going to be one of those "THEY'RE ALL PEDOPHILES" kind of post. Which is why I will start this post by talking about:
The Good
The story is a good story, overlooking all the scenes, I did like the story being told. I personally saw it as something of horror, and here I am talking about both worlds of the main character, from one side she is oppressed and forced into growing up early as she watches her mother having to deal with her father marrying a second wife, that is horrible and sad to see. The other is a little girl seeing her calling in being sexualized early on in her life, which is something of a horror considering her age. To me that is almost as deep of a horror movie as that of "Get out".
That is how I saw the movie, I was horrified especially knowing the many examples of hyper sexualized pre-teens. An example I could think off of the top of my head is that of Brazilian singer Melody who was 11 when she started and her father would take her to bars and strip clubs where she would dance. It painted the picture that the world is in fact horrifying successfully.
Be it, our character sliding down her pants to get an iPhone so she could sext, the dance routines, a creepy scene where she would dance to the sound of the Quran while being scolded by her mother and grandmother. I have to say, watching the movie at first I didn't see the problem with these scenes (Something we will come back to later) as after all, this is an 18+ movie and I was watching it as a straight--thinking adult.
The movie's ending where we see the main character seeing the bad of both sides and just choosing to play a jumping rope supports what I think about the movie being about the struggle between the two. She ends up being happy just being an 11 years old living her pre-teen years. That is from a story perspective, will come back to the directorial choices later.
The Bad
Is there one thing the director isn't trying to do? Listening to her interview on Youtube as well as reading what she said to Time, I have to ask the question about all the things she is trying to do. The religion is strict, but also not that strict and Islam isn't bad, but also feminism is freedom, but also it is capturing, but also it is about the patriarchy being, but also the matriarchy being bad as well, but also, but also, but also....
Maïmouna Doucouré picked every theme she found in her purse and decided to insert it in one movie. How many themes can you fit into one movie? The answer for any inspiring moviemakers here is one by the way. The Dark Knight is about the war between good and evil, Shawshank Redemption is about the search for freedom, Taxi Driver is about a man's heading toward insanity and mental illness, and so on.
You can't have 18 themes, put them in a blender, and pour it into the movie. The result of doing that would be people losing out of where the message is. Is Islam bad and she needs to escape it? No, cause the Imam does say that Islam cares about women's rights. When you decide to bring up so many questions and subsequently answer them, you end up contradicting yourself.
Each theme in the movie warranted its own movie. One where you would go through it slowly to get the point across. The dance scenes didn't dominate the movie, and maybe in a book form, the public would have tolerated them better, but with the mess around them, you are left only to focus of those scenes. Which leads me to my next point.
The God-Awful Ugly
Remember what I said about the good regarding the movie? Well, apparently I am wrong, according to the director at least. The director went into the path of "It's a feminist movie", highlighting one of the biggest issues in Hollywood at the moment. Much like the remake of Charlie's Angels, the theme of the movie is forced into feminism. Not every movie starring a woman should be about feminism. The Charlie's Angels movie starring Cameron Diaz was about agents seeking to disrupt an evil plan. And this movie, at least to what I saw, was about a girl growing up in confusing situation.
When the movie shifts its direction from being what I originally thought and what the director said in her Youtube interview linked above, into something else, all the good things thought about it do as well. In the end what I saw to be good about the movie is simply wrong.
The movie is no longer a cautionary tale for parents and grown ups about the hyper-sexualizing of children, which is a point that was delivered poorly in the first place but could be forgiven as you see the horror and effects of it. It leaves children in vulnerable places where they could be hurt. It becomes a feminist journey. Which changes what everything you have seen. Feminism has become a clutch for many messy movies.
Finally, no. You can't tell me the harm of hyper-sexualizing children by doing it yourself. Yes, I will admit that at first I was shocked to see what I saw in the way you originally intended, but still, you did it. Thousands of videos seen by hundreds of millions of people of those 4 girls dancing and twerking are online and won't go away. You are not making a documentary, your job as a moviemaker isn't to just put reenact things you saw. You can't tell me the danger of porn for example by just playing me a gang bang scene. If you are looking to show the harm, you don't focus on the action rather than the before and most importantly the after.
I liked the ending sequence, the girl decides to quit the group, reconsolidates with her mother, and plays like a child in a surreal scene. But other than me believing that's what the director wanted to do, there wasn't any incentive shown to warrant it. Meaning that in the end, yes, you just used advanced cameras to film girls twerking and some side distractions.
Just to be clear
I intentionally left out the discussion about pedophilia and all of that. Yes pedophiles will have a field day with it, but I can say that about millions of pictures and videos and online, not to mention actual child rape on Pornhub. That discussion seems to be pointless especially when the outrage isn't directed at the people doing the most harm. I also don't live inside the minds of the moviemakers, promoters, Netflix, and Sundance, to deem them as pedophiles. There are plenty of other posts, videos, tweets, and everything talking about that.
In Summary
What I rated originally as a good movie, or not that bad at worst, would have been a better book. But the biggest issue then was a director and a media narrative attempted to move its meaning, rendering the few good things I took from the movie meaningless. The lack of experience showed from a self-taught director, one should deserve some credit for the attempt and I wish luck in the future.
"Cuties" isn't the first movies to tackle those issues, so I can't even give it credit there. It's not the worst to do so, as I could name movies I have scene where 11-13 years olds acted whole sex scenes. It attempted something and failed at it miserably, so much so that it shifted the conversation else where. It would be a solid 6 out of 10 for me, but that would require a serious and forceful overlook to all the explicit scenes, ones that prevented me from watching the movie again just to write this post.