The Girl (2012)

A young Texan mother who loses her child to foster care begins smuggling Mexicans across the border.

Director:

David Riker

Writer:

David Riker

Stars:

Abbie Cornish, Geoffrey Rivas, Austin West

2 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Abbie Cornish	...	Ashley
Geoffrey Rivas	...	Manager
Austin West	...	Georgie (as Austin Wayne West)
Annalee Jefferies	...	Gloria
Will Patton	...	Tommy
Giovanna Zacarías	...	Enriqueta
Luci Christian	...	Sally
Harold Torres	...	Isidro
Javier Zaragoza	...	Felix
Abel Lopez Marroquin	...	Pancho
Angeles Cruz	...	Rosa's Mother
Maritza Santiago Hernandez	...	Rosa
Raúl Castillo	...	Border Agent
Hanne Jiménez Turcott	...	Waitress
Heber Garnica	...	Car Wash Man

Storyline

A single mother loses custody of her young son while struggling to make ends meet, but takes control of her own fate after meeting a desperate Mexican girl who lost her mother while sneaking over the border into the U.S. Ashley (Abbie Cornish) is a 20-something mother still reeling from the loss of her son to Social Services when a surprise visit from her truck-driver father presents an opportunity to make some quick cash as a coyote. Having recently lost her job at a big box store in Austin, she quietly begins smuggling Mexicans over the border in hopes of staying afloat financially. Then, one night, she crosses paths with a young girl whose mother vanished while crossing a river in the dead of night. Determined not to get involved, Ashley tries in vain to keep a distance from the girl, but eventually finds her conscience stirred by the innocent child's plight. Over the next few days Ashley joins the frightened child in attempting to locate her missing mother. Meanwhile, the mother ...

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Plot Keywords:

u.s. mexico border | mexican border | father daughter relationship | mother daughter relationship | mother son relationship | 

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Taglines:

The journey will change her forever

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Genres:

Drama | Mystery | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for thematic material including violence/disturbing images, and for language and smoking

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

USA Mexico

Language:

Spanish English

Release Date:

6 December 2013 (Mexico)

Also Known As:

Az embercsempész

Filming Locations:

Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico

Company Credits

Production Co:

Journeyman Pictures,Axiom Films,Goldcrest Pictures

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

Emily Blunt was attached to the project but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. Abbie Cornish was later cast.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Ashley: You want to help, Mr. Chavez?
Manager: Of course.
Ashley: Then why don't you give me a raise? I've been here a year already. They told me I would get a raise after three months.
Manager: You didn't get a raise because of your attitude.
Ashley: What's wrong with my attitude?
Manager: Look, Ashley, I have to treat you the same way I treat everyone else.
Ashley: Is that right? Why is it I always get the worst shift? I mean, everyone knows that you like Mexican girls best, the place is full of them.

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Soundtracks

BAILA
Performed by Eb Black
Written by Eduardo Hernandez, Alberto Jardin, Ramon Valery
Courtesy of LMS Records
Under License from Latin Music Specialists

User Reviews

The Girl (2012)

As I started watching The Girl (2012), from the beginning scenes it absorbed me in itself, letting me lose my control over things as an outside observer but rather float inside the story observing it directly as a third person inside the screen; I enjoyed that very much. Abbie Cornish portraits elegance and delicacy of a woman in this movie as she did in Bright Star (2009) prior to this, and features perfect sense of motherhood as she did in Candy (2006) in the scene of miscarrying the baby, but here more sophisticated. She plays Ashley, a single mother who is in danger of losing her nearly five year old son named Georgie to a woman named Gloria who can't have kids and at the moment is fostering him and according to Ashley has a plan of adopting him like the two other kids that she has already fostered and then adopted. She is from San Antonio-Texas. She can't afford a proper house and lives in a trailer. Her salary is so low and the raise she was supposed to get after three months working in a convenience store which now is turning to a year, was dismissed; "You didn't get a raise because of your attitude", says Mr. Chavez, the manager. But as the movie goes on we find out that she has no attitude and is so modest and responsible. Ashley has no money and to win in the court, she has to prove to CPS (Child Protective Services) that she is eligible to take care of her son. In a surprise visit, Ashley's father shows up on her door step and when he finds her daughter sad asks her to go and celebrate with him in Mexico. He even goes further and gives her money to buy her son a set swing claiming that he's been on lucky street in his work but later she finds that her dad is a human trafficker. In spite of despising her father for that, in an act of desperation, Ashley starts trafficking Mexicans to Austin-Texas herself. She is a beginner and doesn't know that in order to cross the river they will need inner tubes which leads to the loss of Rosa's mother, a stubborn young girl who blames Ashley for loss of her mother and claims searching for her. Looking through the drown people in police station, Ashley finds out that Rosa's mother is dead which makes her to feel more responsible for the girl. Her maternal sense doesn't allow her to hand the girl over to the strangers. She even tries to postpone her court to find her family. Rosa has no family but a grandmother in the middle of nowhere in a beautiful mountain land. I never knew Mexico had such an amazing green landscapes; it seemed a trip to heaven for me. There are scenes of desperation and poverty in the movie which made me sympathize with the Latino America, but no sympathy seems better than splitting out the word "God damn" which Ashley did after she took a through look around and saw the misery in people's looks. Ashley smokes a lot and in her definition of "Stressed" she regards it as one of being adult effects. That may be true in some senses. Her face though, is a dictionary of the word, "Stress". However, most of the times she manages it in a wise manner with her responsible choices and acceptance. Inner struggles of a mother with her conscience over a responsibility of a child and trying to win her own child back has perfectly, beautifully, and purely been pictured in this movie and what is the most mind capturing feature is combining it with natural sounds around and sometimes letting silence tell the story which is what David Riker as the director has certainly been successful at.