MQFF 2021 Film Review: My Girlfriend is the Revolution
Images courtesy of Melbourne Queer Film Festival.
My Girlfriend is the Revolution is growing pains personified.
This bittersweet story begins with the young Sofia after she, her mum and sister have moved to the boring suburban town of Las Arboledas. At the beginning of the film, Sofia typifies the teenage experience. She inhabits that liminal space each teenager must navigate. Sofia’s bedroom, the music she listens to and her clothes all appear a little bit childish and overly sweet, perhaps an aesthetic Sofia has grown too comfortable with. She also exhibits however, a desire to be treated like her own person, to be taken seriously. Sofia’s mother for example is often preoccupied with Sofia’s upcoming quinceañera, a celebration Sofia herself has told her mother she does not want. Director Marcelino Islas Hernández takes time at the beginning of his film to really situate the viewer within the mundane and monotonous patterns of Sofia’s daily life, in which she eats silently, has no friends at school, and seems to exist untethered to anything in her quiet, suburban life.
This is all of course, to heighten the effects of the whirlwind that is Eva, into Sofia’s life. Eva is the quintessential punk rocker rebel; constantly donning a studded leather jacket and combat boots, touting anarchy and hating anyone she perceives as being a ‘poser’. Sofia is instantly enthralled and quickly becomes inculcated into Eva’s safety pinned, no holds barred way of life. The two delve into a debaucherously chaotic bender of breaking and entering, stealing people’s stuff and trashing their houses during the day, and going out to rock n roll clubs at night to drink and get high. The ever-present theme of anarchy rather naturally compliments the notions of burgeoning queerness that My Girlfriend is the Revolution explores, particularly so within the often-stifling context of suburbia that Sofia is firmly rooted in. Predictably however, as is the case with most relationships that hinge on a white-hot intensity all the time, the fun does not last for long, and the crutch that Eva has quickly become for Sofia, is suddenly and painfully removed.
In the context of Sofia’s life, Eva is akin to a large rock being thrown into a placid pool of water, causing an initial disruptive splash and later, run-on ripple effects for Sofia that continue well after the two split. By the film’s end, after Sofia has existed beyond her relationship with Eva for some time, it is clear that Sofia’s girlfriend was not the revolution after all. Rather the revolutionary act comes when Sofia is able to begin her journey of authentic self-actualisation, after being exposed to a lifestyle and ethos starkly outside of everything she had grown up with. Whilst it is undeniable that the notion of self-discovery is a rather typical character arc of the teen drama, it is nonetheless presented quite refreshingly with a quiet dignity here not often found in films of the same genre.
My Girlfriend is the Revolution is scheduled to play at the Melbourne Queer Film Festival running from the 18th to the 29th of November. Tickets are available now - click here for more info.
Images courtesy of Melbourne Queer Film Festival.