[star rating=”4″] CUT OUT GIRLS. Written and directed by Nicola Hanekom. With Joel Rosenblatt, Ashleigh van der Hoven, Cody Mountain, Atlanta Johnson, Meghan Oberholzer, Keziah Gabriel, Chloe Papademetriou and more. Ster-Kinekor and Nu Metro cinemas.
MEGAN FURNISS reviews
I have just returned from the Cape Town première of Cut Out Girls, a movie written and directed by well known actor, writer, director and lecturer Nicola Hanekom, and I am shattered.
Set in Cape Town, with the familiar city streets, and our cold, frothy sea, Cut Out Girls follows the story of two young men in their twenties – tennis players and rapists – and the young women whose lives they affect and infect. First there are the girlfriends Genna and Gilly, who struggle to understand what their boyfriends are getting up to. There is gay couple Annie and Clea, victims of a simultaneous drug and rape, and then the tragic and unstable wannabe ballet dancer Leigh.
Cape Town is a perfect and terrifying landscape for the action; there is something so utterly familiar about these young adults, still on the cusp of being children. I know these kids. And these young actors give brilliant, nuanced, heartfelt and convincing performances throughout.
Gripping, beautifully filmed movie
The cinematography, music, styling and script all play their part at making this a beautiful and really hard to watch film. I squirmed, gasped and held my heart in my mouth often.
Nicola Hanekom and producer Grant Swanby have made a gripping, beautifully filmed movie that completely belies the fact that it was made with a Chappies, a piece of string and a plastic bottle cap. This is a proper, full feature, high quality, fiercely independent and screamingly relevant movie that every young person in Cape Town, in South Africa and then the world should see.
It has taken a huge amount to get it into mainstream theatres and it needs your support. Go and see this extraordinary, devastating film.
What: Cut Out Girls
Where and when: Ster-Kinekor and Nu Metro cinemas from 22 November 2019
WS
