Odd Girl Out
| Odd Girl Out | |
|---|---|
| File:Oddgirloutposter.jpg | |
| Directed by | Tom McLoughlin |
| Starring | Alexa Vega Lisa Vidal Leah Pipes Shari Dyon Perry Alicia Morton |
| Language | English |
Odd Girl Out is a drama 2005 telefilm starring Alexa Vega (Vanessa), Lisa Vidal (Barbara), Elizabeth Rice (Nikki), Alicia Morton (Tiffany), Leah Pipes (Stacy), Shari Dyon Perry (Emily) and Chad Biagini (Tony). The movie was first aired on April 4, 2005 on Lifetime Television. It is the story about the struggles of thirteen-year-old Vanessa Snyder, who must deal with peer pressure and the brutality of middle school students.
This film is based on the advice book Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls by Rachel Simmons. It sheds light into the topic of girls' hostility and bullying which is usually non-physical, indirect and hard to detect. Rachel Simmons tells the reader that this problem is harmful, destructive and usually ignored, leaving victims to suffer in silence.
Plot
Vanessa Snyder is a smart, beautiful and adored eighth-grader in her school. She has a loving single mother, Barbara, who is proud of her well-placed daughter. Vanessa is also "in" with a popular clique, led by her best friend Stacy Larson, the Queen Bee, and Nikki Rodriguez, who is secretly jealous of Stacy and Vanessa's bonding. On the outside of this exclusive friendship circle is the humble and cautious girl, Emily, and blonde wannabe, Tiffany, who's dying to make it into the pack.
Vanessa's gleaming world of middle school perfection crumbles into bits when Nikki, Tiffany and other followers spot her talking to Stacy's love interest, Tony. Before Vanessa could see what's coming, Stacy, Nikki and Tiffany (and the others) turn on her, spreading harmful rumors, calling her names, cornering her in the school bathroom and the worst, bashing her online. Each of her former friends play special roles in destroying Vanessa's trust, self-esteem and confidence. They also offer several "fake truces" for her to help them in school work.
Emily tries to convince Vanessa not to go running back to the clique, but Vanessa keeps attempting to seek reconciliation with Stacy, to disastrous results. The bullying escalates, with Stacy, Nikki and Tiffany (with other hanger-ons) cornering Vanessa inside a bathroom and brutalizing her verbally, including degrading every aspect of her and revealing her embarrassing secrets. Vanessa ends up chopping all her hair off in her bathroom as the tormentors' voices echo in her head. She starts cutting school, fearing the horror in the hallways. The bullies propose false states of peace for her to help them in schoolwork, only to dump her over and over again.
Once Vanessa displays to her mother a print-out of comments by others about her new hair, Barbara attempts to help by informing the school principal about the bullying, to no avail as the school board is unable to take disciplinary action against non-physical bullying. Barbara even tries to talk to Stacy's mother but only ends up straining their friendship.
Stacy calls Vanessa, informing her that her birthday party will be postponed. On the night which Vanessa and her mother arrive at the place of the party, they discover that Stacy had lied. When they come back home, Vanessa has a meltdown in her room and after a while, overdoses on her mother's sleeping pills. She is then hospitalized and is visited by Emily, whom she befriends.
Back home, Barbara sees hostile instant messages on Vanessa's computer. She sends them to the principal, who threatens to expel the culprits. Vanessa returns to school and Stacy explains to her how much she wants to rewind to the beginning of the school year and start again. They become friends again until graduation where Nikki and Tiffany read aloud an IM chat between Stacy and Vanessa. Vanessa finds Stacy and confronts her, telling her she's fake and pathetic. Stacy tells her that she'll regret it, to which Vanessa responds, "You have nothing that I want." Everyone, including Barbara, is proud of her for finally standing up to Stacy, before she exits with Emily.
External links
- Odd Girl Out at IMDb