Clip It: Each day, Jon Davis looks at the world of trailers, featurettes and clips and puts it all in perspective.
I have never been a white girl, so I can't speak to that experience, but this trailer does not make it look fun at all. It might be sexy and wild, sure, but fulfilling and happy? No. Drugs are a tricky thing in movies. Doing drugs is not inherently sexy. It usually involves sticking things up your nose or needles in your arm. It's kinda ew. Do that business in private.
In order to make it cinematic, directors depict drugs in sexy and dramatic ways. In real life, it just isn't that glamorous. Vinyl – the 70s era HBO show about a drug addled music executive – wasn't renewed partly because nobody believed that drugs worked in the way they were depicted. Bobby Cannavale would snort up a line of coke and then immediately bend backwards and scream upwards into the camera like he was possessed by an angry wolf man. If cocaine worked like that, it would not be as popular. Give the first time director Elizabeth Wood some credit. Doing drugs in White Girl looks like the lonely endeavor that it is.
I'm also glad to see Morgan Saylor in a lead role. She played Dana Brody in Homeland and was a standout in the first season until the writers turned her into a pouty mess, so much so that they gave up and wrote her out. That wasn't the actor's fault. White Girl could be a great vehicle for Morgan, as long as she doesn't use this vehicle to run over someone and whine about it for several episodes.
If I ever have a daughter, I will make sure I watch this movie on repeat so I will know what to expect.