The Holy Girl (2004)

Sight and Sound have just published a list of the best films released in Britain in 2005 according to their resident critics and this Argentinian movie came in at joint second.  I must be missing something since I found the film very tedious.  It concerns a teenaged girl who with her classmates in their religious education classes are told to find their "vocation".  She decides that hers is to save the soul of a middle-aged doctor who has a nasty habit of touching up young girls and who is attending a conference at the hotel where she lives with her divorced mother, who incidentally is attracted to the (married) doctor.  The girl's attempt to establish contact with him puts the fear of whatsit into him and he tries to keep his distance,  And while we are left to draw our own conclusions as to the outcome, it is pretty clear that she is about to ruin his reputation and life.  The film is thought to be insightful into the mind of a religion-obsessed teenager as she copes with this and her own budding sexuality, but I found the exposition muddled and a little on the fey side.

On a completely different subject since it is hardly worth its own review, if you ever wondered what happened the the sweet little boy who played Oliver in the British musical, he is now a director (Mark Lester) who makes incredibly crappy movies, the most recent of which is "Pterodactyl" (2005) which I have just has the misfortune of watching.  Bring back the prehistoric birds and let them turn the cast list into an abattoir.