Trouble Girl (2024) ‘Far East Film Festival’ Movie Review: Mental disorder is a delicate condition to discuss and portray, and when it comes to children, it is an even more complex problem. The complex is not only for those affected by it but also for those in the challenging position of the guardian. And, so many times, we try to make up for complex problems with simple answers. Who is the good guy? Who is the bad guy? Trivially, for those in a supportive position, usually the parent, being “good” means being understanding, empathetic, patient, and loving. The parent who loses patience, who is haughty, self-pitying, and resentful of their role is to blame. However, in the real world, we have the tolerant but sometimes resentful parent, and we have the affectionate but barely around one. What are they? Good ones or bad ones?
“Trouble Girl” (original title Xiao xiao), the directorial debut of Taiwanese author Chin Chia-hua, offers an honest depiction of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) in children. In the movie, Xiao-xiao (played by Audrey Lin), a fifth-grader affected by the condition, experiences it in the form of hostile and antisocial behavior toward other children, teachers, and adults in general. Above all, in her ambivalent relationship with her mother, Wei-fang (Ivy Chen), a young and beautiful woman romantically linked to Xiao-xiao’s main teacher, Hong Kong native Paul (Chun-Him Lau).
Through the eyes of these three characters, the director opts to portray the child’s discomfort as if to cover the three most common perspectives in interfacing with it, namely the subject of the disorder, the primary guardian, and the primary external support. Xiao-xiao is an intelligent child but, naturally, struggles to conceive of her condition as “outside the norm,” and, consequently the reason why her behavior should be adjusted. Experiencing her mother’s attempt to treat her ADHD as a series of strictures and failing to appreciate them, her attitude toward the woman is constantly one of rejection or contempt.
Instead, she would like to see her father, perpetually absent but whose disinterest is perceived by the child as acceptance, a sort of resignation to her condition that she cannot find elsewhere. Wei-fang, who has sacrificed her career as a pianist to be able to take care of her daughter’s special needs, alternates between trying to get closer to Xiao-xiao and growing impatient with being constantly refused by her. Paul, who has a genuinely kind spirit, is the only one who is able to establish a constructive dialogue with the girl, serving as her paternal surrogate, a role he can never fully accept since he is, after all, Wei-fang’s lover and not her companion.
A film with a straightforward construction finds its strength in empathy for its characters and in the performances of the actors. In particular, Audrey Lin credibly inhabits the role of Xiao-xiao, an extremely demanding role for a performer who is still very young. For the role, the actress became the youngest winner of the local Golden Horse Award, establishing herself as one of the most promising debut performers in Asian cinema. A simple, clean, and finely packaged movie, “Trouble Girl” is a polished yet thematically bold debut in the landscape of new Taiwanese cinema, if not particularly innovative or representative of a defined authorial vision.
In conclusion, the real strength of Chin Chia-hua’s movie is the candid transposition of the mother-daughter relationship and the willingness to stage the unspoken neuro-development disorder. Overcoming the banal dichotomy of sanctified parent and demonized parent, the film takes a realism-driven approach, a sincerity that is, bizarrely, almost a contemporary taboo. It is, in fact, uncommon, particularly in the figure of the guardian, to find other depictions combining a nonetheless “good” human nature with an obvious fallibility.
Commonly to blame, the parent who succumbs to a sense of injustice or ingratitude finally becomes something obvious. Obvious because it is an unjust condition for the sufferer as much as it is for their family, and in which the afflicted person is indeed “ungrateful,” a particular form of ingratitude in which the guardian sacrifice is not recognized by the beneficiary, but only because the beneficiary does not have the tools to understand it. “Trouble Girl” thus overcomes a common simplification by staging an ambivalent, and for that very reason, genuinely authentic, relationship.
A well-packaged but mildly derivative debut feature that still lacks a new and defined authorial identity, “Trouble Girl” debuted in local theaters in December 2023, and a more widespread international distribution is in prospect. Presented for its European premiere at the Udine Far East Film Festival in April, Chin Chia-hua’s film stands out as a frank analysis of ADHD and, hopefully, a bridge that will allow for real-world dialogue on how to live and co-exist with this disorder.
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