The title of first-time director Elizabeth Wood’s debut feature refers to both the film’s main character and cocaine. College student Leah (Morgan Saylor) moves to a mostly Hispanic neighborhood in Queens and her new drug-dealing guy-friend, Blue (Brian “Sene” Marc), is arrested shortly after the two begin a whirlwind romance. In hopes of hiring a decent lawyer (Chris Noth), Leah resolves to sell the rest of Blue’s sizable stash, a move that only exacerbates her dangerous drug habits and appetite for reckless sex. But the real meaning behind the title, the one that figures into the narrative more prominently than any character type or plot device, fits within the increased awareness of the type of privilege given to white people in circumstances where nonwhite people are left holding the bag. White Girl, a searing drama that takes on the messy and chaotic ways of its subject, dives headfirst into issues of race and class, but Wood’s reliance on shock value and explicit imagery lessens the power of her premise.
Much of the story is inspired by the director’s own experience, which explains the film’s immersive nature. Wood’s style is raw and immediate, and she captures Leah’s impulsive behavior with a documentary-like urgency. Even if Wood’s life didn’t play out exactly like Leah’s, the character’s wildest and most imprudent moments—dancing topless in a crowded club, snorting coke off her boss’s erection—impart the bold familiarity of a lived experience, and the probing camerawork ensures we’re as entrenched in the action as the characters. Eventually, though, the impression wears thin, and all the colors, sounds, drugs and nudity—assaultive and relentless as they are—coalesce into a sort of idle exploitation. The worst parts of White Girl feel like a spoof of Larry Clark or Harmony Korine.
In leveraging these techniques, Wood leaves characterization behind. Leah is a paper-thin protagonist, marked solely by her appalling selfishness and addictive personality. (“I’d probably drink nail polish remover if somebody handed it to me,” she says at one point.) Her lack of self awareness or an interior life distinct from her surroundings suggests that the director sees her as symbolic of a certain person or personality type, the sort of carefree naïf smart enough to get into college yet oblivious to the systemic injustices that run through the country’s most powerful and influential civic institutions. Privilege is the root of the problem. The movie’s awareness—its “wokeness,” as it were—is admirable, but it never evolves into anything resembling analysis. It’s exhausting and just a little depressing to watch Saylor, an up-and-coming actress of considerable skill, endure scenes of punishment and abuse in service of social commentary that never quite hangs together.
In terms of pure bravado, Woods showcases a virtuosic moment or two. The scene where Blue is arrested unfolds in a combination of background and off-screen action, and we don’t get a full glimpse of what’s happening until the cops have him pressed up against the window of the grimy restaurant where he and Leah were just chatting. The police take him to jail without even considering that Leah might have the actual score (she does), or that she’s associated with him in the first place, and the scene effectively (if somewhat obviously) illustrates the way identity is affixed to experience. The film’s poetic final scene pulls off the idea much more succinctly. Back in class after her summer of hedonism, with the fate of those closest to her pointed resolutely toward tragedy, Leah’s blank expression reminds us that the ultimate privilege is never having to apologize.
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