If Tall Girl was intended to be satirical, then the creators did an excellent job. But it wasn’t. So it stunk. 

There is no glaring issue of tall, skinny, pretty white girls being the main target of bullying for their appearance. 16-year-old Jodi Kreyman is on the receiving end of relentless mockery to the point of feeling uncomfortable in her own skin. To put things in perspective, the actress that portrays Jodi is a model. 

Bullying in high school feels awful. The place you spend most of your days should not be the place that you’re unable to walk freely without being made fun of. Tall Girl takes this very real issue and does a horrible job of portraying it. 

Jodi has a tendency to slump around, trying to go unnoticed. This changes when a Swedish exchange student, Stig, joins the school. Jodi suddenly gains the confidence she’s been searching for her entire life when a boy enters the picture.

 This plot is overused, tired, and in this case, unrealistic. Apparently, Jodi’s high school doesn’t have any other girls who are over 6 ft, and they take extreme notice when there is one. 

There are many movies that take this approach, like most John Hughes movies. They take a pretty girl (Molly Ringwald) and attempt to convince the audience that she’s the biggest loser at her school.  However, these movies aren’t meant to be a true portrayal of high school, and that’s made evident from the beginning. It’s okay for movies about teenagers to be unrealistic, but that has to be the purpose. 

Michelle herself has actually experienced setbacks in her life for her height. She made an appearance on Dance Moms, and Abby Lee Miller denied her contribution to the team for her long limbs. A movie that followed her climb from being mocked by a grown woman to being an acclaimed model would be much more sincere. 

Rather than doing something along those lines, the writers took the route of an over-exaggerated tall tale. I’m not saying that there are no confidence issues that accompany being a girl who’s somewhat tall, and I say this as someone who’s not that tall. But it’s not a problem that derives from bullying. It comes from the habit that many girls have no matter what they look like: constantly comparing yourself to those you find pretty. 

Tall Girl doesn’t bring anything new, interesting, or real to the table. We’re entering an age where we start to take teenagers more seriously, but it’s clear that this movie didn’t catch the memo.  It’s hollow, insincere, boring, and unwatchable.