The greatest movie ever made..!

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Regardless of any 'errors' or liberties the director may have taken, understand that this is a TRUE story of a minor, a 17-year old girl, who was raped and had the courage to attempt to seek justice. Nevertheless, the psychological effects of rape in that era (1937) had a ripple effect in her life. It touched and destroyed nearly every aspect of her life. The lessons to be learned deal with courage, integrity, honestly, and communication. If possible, I highly recommend watching on DVD so you have access to the director's commentary. Go ahead and read the harsh reviews - examine the criticism and you will discover nit-picking and diversion from the good that you will gain from a viewing.

This is another one of those documentaries that should that teach young filmmakers to leave themselves out of their own flicks. No matter how compelling the story, people don't appreciate hearing about how the writer/director himself is a great man simply for stumbling upon a story and having the ability ask questions. An example of my main problem with this film is the three minutes of the director getting stood up in Las Vegas. Three minutes later there's a lengthy montage of the subject telling us how great the director is--he feigns humility by pretending to protest her praise AND INCLUDES IT IN THE FILM!"Girl 27" is very much like "Cropsey," which should have been called "A Pair of Failures (Who, with Better Looks, Would have been Actors or, with More Investigative Skills, Detectives, but have Sadly Fallen into the Business of Boogieman Speculation Documentary) Running Around, Pushing Doorbells, Getting Jerked Around, and Ultimately Concluding Nothing." This is not to say that I expect anyone to actually SOLVE a mystery or tie up all of the facts with a nice little bow right before the credits hit, either. But I never throw on a documentary hoping to see the filmmakers throwing tantrums and getting upset when they hit a dead end. We're not all holding our breaths in anticipation of an interview that never happens, just because it's a monumental moment in the otherwise unremarkable life of a loser with a camera.This is one of those films where the director tries to associate themselves with a history that they had nothing to do with. After the trite Bible cliché to open the film (please folks, this overused even more than the opening line, "When I was a child, I used to dream that..."), the first voice we hear and the first interview we see is the director's. And he's making a case for the importance of HIS unearthing this story--even Greta Van Susteren hadn't heard of it! Jackie O. gave HIM a mandate! I found the director instantly off-putting, but because of the subject matter I continued watching like I did with "Intangible Asset No. 82." (Like "I.A. #82" this filmmaker goes to great lengths to tell you how little information exists on the topic before he proceeds to waste minute after minute of needless, self-inflating face-time.) This guy interviews people but inexplicably you hear him talking more than the interviewees. Directors should leave themselves out of their documentaries. I would say that the only exception should be when the filmmaker is an activist/advocate in the Michael Moore vein or when the draw of the filmmaker would increase awareness (as with "An Inconvenient Truth").Filmmakers: learn from "Brother's Keeper," "Romántico," "Man on Wire," "Marwencol," The Thin Blue Line," "Shotguns and Accordions," "Panama Deception," "You can't be Neutral," and other films that care more about the dignity and the humanity of the topic rather than with trying to entertain a mass Dateline-style audience.That this film is so formulaic isn't what's so egregious. I'm not rating this film based on the original music that could have been the soundtrack to 100 different mainstream documentaries over the last decade... [...It does seem that the higher-profile documentaries ("Freakonomics," "Client 9," "Food Inc.," "Casino Jack," "Plunder") don't teach you anything that you didn't already know if you cared at all about any of the topics. They're like the movie-form of a Wikipedia page. I don't really understand why people leave out facts and context that they try to squeeze onto DVD extras because the running time has been taken up with clips from Jimmy Stewart movies and montages conceived with classic rock song titles in mind. Films such as these seem to me more like a "Steal This Movie" or "Son of Sam" kind of biopic without professional actors. But by simply relating the story in "Girl 27" we are provided with more than we ever knew before, so a less-egoistic writer/director had the potential to make a very enlightening work.]...I also don't fault the writer/director for feeling a connection to the story that they are making--I WANT them to care intensely. But, filmmakers, if the subject matter is truly noteworthy and you are concerned about the running time of the film, I can't help but think that the cause you are fighting for (and the viewing audience) are better served by your not making a movie about you making a movie about some other person.

What self-respecting documentary filmmaker would appear on camera to quote his book editor (Jacqueline Onassis): "She said, 'if anyone can tell this story, you can, David.'") or go in for the close-up to feature a testimonial from his subject ("Thank God for him")? It's an obnoxious way to, respectively, begin and end, a potentially compelling documentary about an incredibly brave woman.The first half is a rather sloppily edited view of Hollywood in the 1930s with a lot of misguided film clips used to illustrate the worst of celebrity and power (and a lot of footage of director Stenn pacing and fretting and worrying and sitting with every tangential revelation cued with ominous music). The hotel room scene in which Steen anxiously awaits his first face-to-face meeting with Patricia Douglas is embarrassing. So is the admission that he offered to scrub out her toilets to get her to talk. It's important for her, of course. A catharsis, he says. You can't help but feel that Douglas is being exploited all over again so Stenn can get an "exlcusive" for his lip-smacking tabloid story.When Douglas, as well as her family, are finally allowed to speak for themselves in the second half, it becomes a more focused and moving look at the subject herself, and the life-long ramifications of sexual assault. But Stenn can't help but to throw himself in at the end again, as savior, when he includes Douglas saying, "They should make a documentary about him." Well, he has.

A documentary that could have used a lot less of the documenter, David Stenn spends far to much time on camera and does, what is to me the death kiss of documentaries. Stenn's editing forces his audience to see thing his way and no other, to feel the emotions he feels and to come to all the same conclusions he does. This is in no way anything new to documentaries, Michael Moore for example is the very master of this, now to be fair, does that mean these film makers viewpoints are wrong, no not at all, sometimes they are right on with mine but for heaven sakes let me come to my own opinion honestly. Give me both sides of a story fairly as best as possible and let me use my brain to decide which I believe. Now, I do realize in the case of Girl 27 there is no real way to show both sides, and to listen to Patricia Douglas talk I have no doubt in my mind that she is an honest woman, but it degrades her to surround her story with unfair edits of MGM convention footage with sinister music overplaying. Also on a side not I found the story about Loretta Young & Clark Gable's daughter to be heartbreaking, to hear Judy Lewis tell her story was one of the saddest things I have ever heard, it made me loose a lot of respect for those two actors. Anyway, David Stenn, let Patricia Douglas tell her story, realize what you have in that, it is all your film needs. The bravery of that women to do what she did in both her situation and during that time period is amazing, and for her to go in front of a camera and re-tell that to the world is to be admired.