Great Film overall

Absolutely Fantastic

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

By way of unintentional contrast, I watched The Fits not long after watching The Falling – a film similar in that it deals with mass fainting of girls around the age of puberty. I will not compare and contrast the films, except to say that while The Falling left me on the outside looking it, The Fits manages to draw me into a character for whom I have little in common, make me understand what she is going through, and very much feel for her throughout the film.The plot sees a young girl stop boxing with her older brother in the gym and start to pay attention to the all-girl dance troupe that practice in another hall. As she joins the group and starts to integrate, some of the older girls fall into sudden seizures (which are dubbed 'the fits'). The split between those girls who have experienced these, and those that have not forms tensions within the wider group. The film achieves this while doing (by doing?) several surprising things. The most obvious is that dialogue is very light on the ground, and when it comes it tends to be functional stuff rather than any exposition or grandstanding for the cast to get their teeth into. The other thing it does is let the actual fits be a background thing – something that is happening but is not our focus; instead Toni is our focus, and our relationship to anything in the film is through her.There are so many ways this could not have worked, but it pulls it off well. Hightower gives a great performance and is very well directed; so much I was invested in with her character was down to small reactions, body language, the sense of pent up feeling – all of it drawing me in and giving me things I could relate to even if the specifics I could not. The journey is very clear, and the implied meanings are fairly obvious – but it is the intelligence and subtlety of the story- telling through this character that makes it more than just a series of events (far from it in fact).The Fits is a beautifully observed character study, which never lets the plot device become more than the people – and Toni is accessible and engaging as a character, and thanks to a very well-directed performance from the young lead. It is not a perfect film, and the sense of space may annoy some viewers, or the weakness of some aspects may grate, but at its core it is a tremendous film with near total control over what it is trying to do and how it is trying to do it.

Don't think too hard. This film is about wanting to fit in as an adolescent. And not fully understanding what peers older than you are going through, but wanting to be accepted regardless.Consider the first fit, the first "episode," as real. The leader, Legs, was PREGNANT, from Donte. Maybe she overworked herself dancing? Complications? Dehydration? But she was definitely, absolutely, pregnant... and she then had a seizure, an episode, whatever it was. Chances are it was the only sincere "fit" in the film.Imagine each subsequent fit to be each girl's attempt to follow suit. To be like their "leader." The girl they look up to each day while dancing, the girl they follow, for their own reasons. Toni's dialogue is all you need to know: "Maia wanted it to happen to her." So it did. And, eventually... Toni wanted it too.It's a surreal film. Obviously Toni isn't going to get pregnant, but her mind doesn't fully understand pregnancy yet, so she throws her own unique fit. Just as each of her friends threw their own. She creates a fantasy of being accepted. She floats, she flails, she falls, and she's caught by her friends. She fits.

This 68 minute film (not counting credits) is acted out nearly entirely by female children. They are high school children I guess, although some of them seem much younger than others, so maybe it's one of those high schools that has a "junior high" included. Anyway, all the girls are trying out and / or practicing for some kind of dance group that they have in this particular school. It's not cheer leading and it's not pom poms -- it's just, dance. I don's know if this is a real thing or not but whatever, that's what they're doing. So, some of the girls are experiencing convulsions and fainting. Why? I don't know and neither will you after watching this film. And that's about it. That's the plot. There's not much more to it. But, somehow this little gem of a film is completely watchable, not just because of the amazing feat of getting so many child actor to act so naturally that you'll wonder if they are even acting at all or if someone had a hidden camera in a real school somewhere, but because the flow of the film seems like real life events occurring. I mean, don't expect this film to be Step It Up or Stomp The Yard; it's much too low budget and abstract to be your typical arts as sports film. But if you're ready for an amazing achievement shot on what must have been a shoestring budget, relish what this strange little movie has to offer.

NYU cinematography undergraduate Anna Rose Holmer began as a camera assistant on Catherine Hardwicke's TWiLiGHT (2008) and as a grip on Lena Dunham's TiNY FURNITURE (2010). In 2014, she began scouting Cincinnati, finding not only the absolute perfect school rec hall for her directorial debut but an entire cast of young girls, all of whom attended the school.Holmer establishes a pure, uncompromising cinematic style by quietly following Toni, an 11-year old girl boxer who roams spooky hallways, longingly gazing at "legit" dance team members. The precocious newcomer Royalty Hightower has a perfect blend of introverted determination and wandering magic, while an unexplainable contagion seems to be inhabiting random girls within the school.What is so unique about The Fits is its power to hypnotize any viewer who is prepared for a full-blown transcendental journey. In fact, Anna Rose Holmer's relentless otherworldliness is exactly what puts her feature debut The Fits at the top of my list. Not only does Holmer's film combine the rigid silence and physical exertion of Robert Bresson's A MAN ESCAPED (1956) and Claire Denis' BEAU TRAVAiL (GOOD WORK, 1999), the eerie off-center camera-work by Paul Yee evokes the foggy locker rooms in Brian DePalma's CARRiE (1976) and the abandoned buildings in Paul Lynch's PROM NiGHT(1980).Most importantly, Holmer's film gives her female protagonists actual character arcs. As the mysterious virus continues to attack the class, each sequence and every shot should become more important to the audience. This cinematic process forces viewers to emotionally dig-deep within themselves to truly connect with what these pre-teen inhabitants are speechlessly experiencing. For those who stay in-synch with this 72-minute, mini-masterpiece and allow themselves to feel one of the most unique and sensational finales in recent years, genuine catharsis might actually be attained.Review taken from my 2016 Sundance Film Festival wrap up at www.48hills.org