The movie revolves around Eve (Emily Browning), an aspiring musician who struggle with eating disorder that lands her in a hospital. The free spirited Eve is not a fan of being locked up. Just like a normal teenager of her age, one night she escaped the hospital and went to a club in Glasgow. There, she met James (Olly Alexander) who is one of the performers that night but the music is not appreciated by the audiences that he decided to call it quit early. From there, the two of them maintain a friendship where James seems to be wanting more but he was to shy or self-conscious to say it.
Later in the journey, the pair befriended with Cassie (Hannah Murray), an idle rich girl who have been taking musical lesson from James. The three of them then decided to make a pop band. During the making of their demo album, they spent most times together exploring the cities and getting to know each other and have fun while still struggling with their own issues. Eve is still struggling with her eating disorder despite she's doing what she really loves and her passion in live, which is music, but she also knows that she need to be healthier to pursue good education in music. James is still struggling to figure Eve out, knowing what she really wants and think about. But, most of all, he really struggles to find out whether Eve fancies him or not. Cassie, being the simple minded she is, is struggling to just understand what Eve and James are talking about (and I'm saying it in adorable way, not the mean one).
The movie's focus is about music and it is not the only thing that makes it count to be called a musical film. Just like another musical film, we will occasionally find some musical numbers where the actors sing and dance. To people who is not really keen with this kind of movie might find it a bit cheesy, but to me who ADORE musical so very much, this movie is like heaven. To describe it easier, this movie is like the compilation of several music videos with dialogs and plot. The movie is light and fun but also dark in the same time. There are times when the movie shows the audience what kind of struggle Eve has and the root of her pain. It makes us, as audience, attach to the character.
The cinematography of the movie is really dreamy, kind of dreamy you would find on almost every pop indie music video. It makes you feel nostalgic and being nostalgic is good. It makes you happy, or at least makes you remember that there are still good things in this world.
Being a musical movie and a movie came from a musician, music is definitely important for this movie. I started to listen to the original God Help The Girl album (which is a side project from Stuart Murdoch) around three or four years ago and I love it. The movie was made based on the album and Stuart started to write plot based on the songs on the album. Some movie soundtracks probably was chosen to fit the scene, but it works the other way around, where the scenes were written to fit the songs. For example, the original album has a song called I'll Have To Dance With Cassie and the scene showed Cassie dances alone at the dance floor.
The soundtrack album consisted of all songs from the original album re-recorded and remixed and are sung by the casts. It also features three new track, also are sung by the casts: Pretty Wind Blows, I Dumped You First and I'm Not Rich. Including the dialogues and scores from the movie, there are 28 tracks in the album. I personally love the soundtrack album because Emily, Olly and Hannah provide different colors to the already existing songs.
