The title is such a misnomer. It's not that the protagonist here has low self-esteem; rather, she's just fucking stupid. She doesn't have a Goddamn brain in her head. Perhaps the alt_rock band Garbage have the rights to the term "Stupid Girl." Also, the problem isn't that she is stupid or, supposedly, has low self esteem. The problem is that everyone she knows is a manipulative asshole. Regardless, if you're the kind of cinematic sadist who enjoys watching a film where the main character is simply shit upon for the entire run time, then I invite you to watch both the Hollywood made and big-budgeted "Loser" and this film, it's polar opposite.

Filmed on what must be home video equipment made in 1980, the film looked like crap when projected onto a large screen. Of course, I am not a technophile and I truly believe that if a film is good, you can draw it in stick figures and people will like it. The medium is not the message. But the camera work here is so appalling and so drab, and the film is so stupid and the characters are so infuriatingly awful and the acting is so putrid, that you have time to notice that the media looks like shit. This film has nothing, NOTHING, going for it.

The film's protag, Lois (get it - Low - is) is a stupid girl who allows herself to be used by men. One fucks her and then sells the secret to bedding her to his buddies for actual money. This is the most inane and ridiculous thing in the film. Idiot guys pay another guy to find out that the way to bed this girl is to tell her, "I love you." God, how fucking stupid is that. If that isn't the stupidest fucking thing you've ever heard, you've probably got friends like the morons in this film. Meanwhile, the only cute guy in the film, who is also as dumb as a mud fence and couldn't string two words together with a thesaurus full of conjunctions (What's a Thesaurus?), is a young Christian who takes her to meet his creepy youth pastor.

In what I guess is supposed to be irony or just interesting juxtaposition, the film finds both impenitent cretins and supposedly moral people "using" the girl. But the film's characters are so one-dimensional and phoney that it cannot work. The Christians here are simply easy targets. The men all seem slightly gay and the women are all Valley Girls. I am no defender of the modern Christian faith (it's pretty Goddamn un-Christ-like), but this film maligns Christians and Christianity with a vengeance. Christians are such easy targets for parody and comedy. It's lazy, sloppy and typical scriptwriting from filmmaker Blaine Thurier, who also directs, produces and edits this home movie. (It's not a film).

The acting here is just bad. Thurier apparently just used a rough outline and allowed his "actors" to improvise scenes. But the actors here are simply a bunch of his untalented poseur friends. It's really lame. And when it comes to characters, there is not a single normal person or voice of reason in the piece. Thurier obviously peoples the film with his friends who are nothing more than wannabee actors, musicians and artists. There's not a talented one in the bunch. At least the guy who plays Rob is cute. I could at least tolerate watching the film when he was on screen.

"Low Self-esteem Girl" is one of those pieces of crud that makes you question that whole video revolution. There is not one new idea here. The film is ugly and the editing and pacing is as amateur as everything else about it. It's no surprise that crap like this gets made. It just a surprise that an organization as prestigious as the SXSW Film Festival thought there was something worthy to show here. They were dead fucking wrong.

(No, Lodger, tell us how you really feel!)

Note:

In addition to being a supposed filmmaker, Thurier also plays in a band called New Pornographers.

Made in Canada.

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