One of the best coming-of-age stories of this generation. Never mind that this film is Canadian released as well as traveling the festival circuits and for the moment that you can't find it anywhere else. You will be hearing about it. This film, set in the 70's, is about teenage angst in a changing world, this case being the demise of small towns, where the world never changes. It takes place in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and makes the two protagonists very different but with a same goal.
One is a sullen, angry 15 year old girl who wants out of her tepid existence in Breton, the other is a tough girl with a sharp attitude and fears no one, a girl who has just moved to the town, and they change each other's lives forever.
The former girl is Mooney Pottie Liane Balaban , who has her nose in a book when not in school, ignoring everyone around her, even her family, which does not understand, let alone appreciate her. She wants to study art in New York, but her family objects to that idea, instead they want her to stay home and take a nursing job, for example. Things start to change when the girl across the way, Lou Benzoa Tara Spencer-Nairn moves in, who left from the Bronx in hiding from her father going to jail; her life can't go on from there.
Her mother Cathy Moriarty detests it immediately. The scene where Mooney and Lou meet is funny, where all Mooney has to do is point her fingers around and mention "Bar, hospital, main drag, fish warehouse, street. That's the tour. Mooney and Lou eventually do come together and their flaws, dreams, ideas and passions come out and they try to make the best of it.
They both want out. Mooney wants to study in New York, Lou wants to go back. The seaside town certainly isn't good enough for the both of them, and they make as much change as they can, in the hopes of it doing something. The boxing of Lou's father has rubbed off on her, as she becomes a tough girl unlike any of the others in town, and uses it to her advantage. There's more to "New Waterford Girl" than this, more spirit, ideas and "life" than expected, that makes this a wonderful experience.
