Low Self-Esteem Girl

D: Blaine Thurier; with Corrina Hammond, Rob McBeth, Ted Dave, Cindy Wolfe. (Video, 96 min.)

Lois (aka low self-esteem girl) seems not so much unconfident as she does dim. Easily manipulated and, well, just plain easy, she’s a nice girl who does everything in earnest, like earnestly joining a religious cult and earnestly inviting total strangers in just ’cause they’re holding cute puppy dogs. Low Self-Esteem Girl is kinda funny, but in the way your friends are funny. (Would people pay to watch your friends for 90 minutes?) Canadian director/writer Thurier gets a nod for constructing a laughably weird plot, but there’s not really much here to excite. I freely own up to a bias against video (I think it almost uniformly looks like crap), and Low Self-Esteem Girl doesn’t do anything to change my mind. Add to that a truly lame last-minute stab at female empowerment, and Low Self-Esteem Girl amounts to nothing terribly special, which makes its Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature all the more baffling. (Bad Dog, 3/16, 3:30pm)

This article appears in March 16 • 2001.

A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin’s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community’s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands.

SUPPORT US