Tall Girl is a 2019 comedy about the tallest girl in her high school who has always felt uncomfortable in her own skin, finally deciding to find the confidence to stand tall.
Life in high school is already hard enough, but if you’re different in even the most minimal way, you really stand out. Now imagine if you’re ridiculously taller than everyone in your class. Then you really stand out. Such is the case for Jodi (Ava Michelle), a sixteen-year-old girl who is already six feet one and a half inches tall. She wears men’s 13 sneakers and of course, most every kid in school relentlessly teases her (“How’s the weather up there?” being the go-to torment). Naturally, she has a tiny best friend named Fareeda (Anjelika Washington), who defends her to the end, and Jack (Griffin Gluck), a guy half her size but hopelessly in love with her. However, when hunky very tall Swedish exchange student Stig (Luke Eisner) arrives, Jodi – like every girl in school – falls for him, but is he really the man of her dreams?
Filled with every single outdated high school movie cliché ever made, director Nzingha Stewart‘s Tall Girl, now streaming on Netflix, is exactly what it looks like. It’s corny, fluffy, about as deep as a thimble, and plays by the rules with such fierce dedication, it’s practically invisible. Of course, it’s meant to be, never for a second trying to be authentic, just appealing enough to pad out the roster until the next.
That said, it thankfully doesn’t take itself too seriously, with all the fairy tale buttresses propping it up to satisfy the young eyes the movie is aimed at. Ava Michelle is undoubtedly charming and very well cast, embracing the ugly duckling motiff with all the right intentions, convincing as a girl who long ago felt pushed into the corner by the forces of bullies (here’s hoping doors fly open for this young talent). That’s led mostly by the truly awful Kimmy (Clara Wilsey), who is hyper-stereotypical in her ruthless condemnation of Jodi, to the point of pure cruelty. However, you can be sure all wrongs are righted by the time it ends up at the big school dance formal.
With plenty of energy from the young cast, with Gluck doing all he can to sustain the John Hughes-inspired nerd-in-love outsider (who carries his books in a wooden crate that telegraphs a moment you just know is coming), a beauty queen big sister (Sabrina Carpenter) desperate to give her a makeover, and a pair of fun loving saccharin sweet parents in Angela Kinsey and Steve Zhan, Tall Girl has a simple agenda with nary a conflict to hurdle over in reaching the tried and true finale. It’s a formula that’s worked for decades and will for more to come. Absolutely this will accomplish what it wants and line up die hard fans – as it should, and while it might not get all that deep with its themes and may miss the target at least hits the board and entertains.