Watch God Help the Girl Movie Online Free

DON GONYEA, HOST:

Stuart Murdoch is best known as the lead singer and songwriter of the Scottish band Belle and Sebastian. But now he's written and directed a movie which, no surprise, is a musical. Our film critic Kenneth Turan has this review of "God Help The Girl."

KENNETH TURAN, BYLINE: "God Help The Girl" has such a will-of-the-wisp quality, you fear it will disappear if you attempt to fence it in. It's a classic movie musical, where people burst into tuneful song whenever something is on their minds.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GOD HELP THE GIRL")

EMILY BROWNING: (As Eve, singing) God help the girl, she needs all the help she can get.

TURAN: Yes, boys meet girls and a variety of romantic things and dodges take place. But the heart of this film is elsewhere. "God Help The Girl" is a story of three young people who join forces to make music, not love, during a magical Glasgow summer. It's a film that believes in the gift of friendship and insists that music can well and truly save your life. And did I mention all those great songs? In desperate need of some kind of help is Eve, played by Australian actress Emily Browning, introduced sneaking out of her room in a suburban Glasgow mental health facility. Eve's life and her songs are interchangeable. Everything important she's thinking is destined to come out in the music she writes.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GOD HELP THE GIRL")

BROWNING: (As Eve, singing) There is no way I'm looking for a boyfriend. There is no way I'm looking for a scene. I need to save some dough, I'm a working girl, you know. I fend attention off, I keep to myself.

TURAN: Eve makes a connection with James, played by Olly Alexander, a sensitive guitar player whose day job as a lifeguard ends in a proclivity for trying to save people. James is a pop music fanatic with strong views on what constitutes a band.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GOD HELP THE GIRL")

OLLY ALEXANDER: (As James) If you want to hear your voice floating in the middle of a beautiful tapestry of frequencies, you're going to need a pop group.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GOD HELP THE GIRL")

TURAN: Eve, James and a third young person played by Hannah Murray end up, no surprise, making beautiful music together. No one comes out and says that music is the language of the soul, but no one has to. We see it happening right before our eyes.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GOD HELP THE GIRL")