About a Girl

• The title comes up like a text message, button presses and noises. Shows it might be directed towards a young female audience. It's modern. About a teenage girl, suggest the title. The title also could be connected with the mainstream feature film, 'About a Boy'.
• Introduced to a young female character in the first shot. Innocent, alone, singing and dancing to a Britney Spears song , in a dark field. Shouldn't be there. Silhouetted, identity is being revealed slowly. Intriguing the audience.
• Mancunian accent, confident. Contrasts with previous idea of her. Seems "hard" and very run down, working class. This is shown through stereotypical views of her accent as well as her clothing, which is that of a stereotypical 'chav'. "If Jesus were alive, he'd be a singer." she says, implying that the best thing to be in life would be a singer.
• Talking to the camera, documentary style. We get the idea that her parents are divorced, she doesn't like her dad, calls him a 'bastard'. Lives on a council estate, mum has to look after her and her little brother.
• She is darker than she seemed at the beginning.
• Relationship with dad seems forced, bickers with mum about silly things. Silence when she is with her dad.
• She's 13 and wants to be treated like an adult. She feels that she is mature.
• She doesn't believe her dad could have played for a professional football team. She doesn't seem to enjoy football with her dad.
• Spends her time alone singing. Spends time with her friends singing. singing seems to be her dream, her escape. When she is singing she is oblivious to her surroundings. She's happy with her friends, giggling, young, an inkling of the girl we imagined in the very first shot.
• Things change quickly, like the shots. Random. She's frivolous. There isn't really continuity with the shots. She is constantly changing subjects just as the audience grasps the concept of the subject before. Seems like she doesn't care, doesn't want people to dwell on negative things.
• She lies to the perfume lady because she wanted to spray the perfume on herself, rather than on paper. She likes doing things her own way. She is cheeky and smart.
• She doesn't shut up, seems lonely. She wants to spend time with her dad. She seems to hate her mum, using swear words to describe her tendency to spend money on cigarettes and drink, but not on her own daughter.
• Scenes that contemplate talking about her life and then escaping it.
• Dad doesn't want her to live with him, confirming that she feels (and seems to be) unwanted. She still wants to be with her dad though. She seems small in comparison to him, in shots when they are together, but big when she is in shots alone.
• Pathetic fallacy - weather is grey and horrible, there is no sunshine, much like her life.
• She thinks she is good at hiding things from her mum.
• She despises her mum for putting a dog she got in the canal, so she did the same to a baby. Her own baby, that she hid from her mum. She is a product of her environment. She just threw it away like it was trash, in a plastic bag. Copying her mum. Resentment.
• The baby symbolises her, and the plastic bag symbolises her life. She is trying to shed her old life. The only sunshine comes out when the baby floats out of the bag and down the canal. The bag gets trapped in the canal, symbolising that is isn't going to be that easy for her.
• She is starting to move on already, going to get an ice cream, singing.
• There is no music in the film.
• Her song is Stronger - Britney Spears
  "I'm stronger than yesterday"
• Looking back on it, the title could show that it wasn't about just one person. It could have applied to anybody. She still doesn't have a name.
• 'About a Boy' really contrasts with this film. It has a happy ending and is very upbeat, as well as being mainstream and long. This film is more of a social-realistic film, depressing and gritty.