Textual Analysis: About A Girl

About a Girl,was released in 2001 by Brian percival. About A Girl was also released around the same time as the film About A Boy 2002, wich shows that About a Boy,may have had ideas form the 2001 version to make this film.

At the beginning of the film, the wording comes in text form. This signifies youth culture, as in 2001, mobile phones started to become more popular with the youth.
In the first shot, the girl is seen singing and dancing to Britney Spears. This shows escapism as she seems like she's living in a different world. The camera angle from the bottom, makes her seem superior, connotating that she wants to be ontop of 'the world'. The clouds in the background are quite dark, profretic phalacy, signifying something bad will happen that day. In the shot, she is dark, connotating her background life could be quite dark and dull.

Britney Spears, at the time was seen to be 'innocen' which, she wasn't. This shows that maybe, she relates to Britney and possibly looks up to her as her idol. When she is singing and dancing , the audience may find this amusing and laugh. this is because we can relate to her character as of a younger age, as we probably were doing similar things.

The next shot, her working class background is shown as she is seen quite 'chaved' up. The surroundings are quite dark, with walls connotating she feels trapped in her surroundings e.g.family. She is seen as not close to her family as she talks to herself. She has very much to say, but there is no-one she can confide in and talk to, so the only other person is herself. In the backgrond of the flashback, noises include dogs, playground and birds.

There is a feeling of a broken family. The mum and dad have broken up. The shot with her dad, she says 'I'm not a kid,' showing she's growing up. Dad doesn't respond to her, showing he doesn't care much. He carries on reading his newspaper. The dad is on the doll, always to busy to see her and cannot provide for her neeeds. He plays football, a working class sport, signifying his social state. Most weekends she spends with her dad, he takes her to watch the football which he would do with or without her. When she is seen sitting by herself on the benh, the camera pan makes her look young, feable and alone. When she and her friends are on the bus, the singing and dancing makes them look younger, but shows them elebrating youth.

In the shot where she is in the chemist, the sales assistant asks if she would like any help. She starts to talk and says 'looking after image.' From this and also what we already know of her, you can see she doesn't lead a good life. She wants a piano but mum cannot afford to buy one for her and thinks she's always difficult. The mother usually only thinks of herself instead of herself and her children.

From the way she talks, we see that she has a mind of someone older. She starts to talk about her parents' relationship and how she fits in. We as an audience, establish that she wants to move out. This element of her personality, again, shows her being more mature, as she feels she can fend for herself. We also see that she mentions many celebrity names such as Nirvana, Britney, Bono, Madonna and Stereophonics. This connotates to the audience that she realises that she's currently not living the best of lives, hence the reason for aiming to be with the celebrities.

We feel that she has learnt a way of life from her mum, as she throws a dog in the canal. We see a colour change before she throws the baby into the canal. the dark, grey and dull surroundings, signifies to the audience that something is going to happen. The pace of things are finally slowed down, including her dialogue. She then drops the baby and says 'still gunna have a 99.' This shows that this is her unique way of dealing with personal issues like this and no matter how big it is, she can just start over again and forget about everything. The carrier bag is significant to her, she is disposable and the baby came out of the bag and floats to gate, then she will traapped again.

At the end, one side of the river is very bright contrasting he other as its very dark. This relates to the saying, 'the grass is greener on the other side.' Now she has disposed of the baby, she can be happy now.