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The Holy Girl(La niña santa)

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Argentina, Italy, Netherlands · 2004
Rated R · 1h 46m
Director Lucrecia Martel
Starring Mercedes Morán, Carlos Belloso, Alejandro Urdapilleta, María Alché
Genre Drama

Amalia, a deeply religious 16-year old girl, is simultaneously confused and entranced by her growing sexuality. When middle-aged Dr. Jano makes advances on her at a concert, she is initially disgusted, but somehow also attracted to him. The ensuing game of cat-and-mouse is the story of how she explores her sexuality and the ways that it empowers her and leaves her vulnerable.

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What are critics saying?

90

The New York Times by Dana Stevens

The Holy Girl may occasionally frustrate your desire for clarity and order, but in the end it will reward your patience, and you leave the theater in a state of quiet awe.

70

Variety by Deborah Young

A mystifying film that holds the audience in suspense over where it's going and what it might mean for almost its entire running time.

80

Village Voice by J. Hoberman

Not the least remarkable thing about this deadpan, deceptively haphazard ensemble comedy, a movie as much choreographed as directed, is the way that--at the final moment--the mist simply evaporates.

40

TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh

In stripping her potentially lurid material of salacious appeal, Martel also makes it murky and oddly arid, a mind-numbing exercise rather than an experience.

80

L.A. Weekly by Scott Foundas

It's a style at once ravishing and mysterious, austere and intimate, carrying with it the suggestion that even cinema may be powerless to invade the most clandestine antechambers of human behavior.

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