For those of us brought up in the world of Southern evangelical Christianity, the themes and imagery of The Starling Girl are familiar ones. Obsession over purity. Sexuality as a deeply shameful element of humanity, meant only for marital procreation. Being “mindful” — allowing one’s thoughts to dwell only on holy things. Purity rings, courtship, baptism, fellowship meals, praise and worship.
For the uninitiated, however, the Southern evangelical Christianity depicted in The Starling Girl — specifically, Southern Christian fundamentalism — will look like a peculiar thing, perhaps even exaggerated or anachronistic. Indeed, until you catch a glimpse of one character’s smartphone, you might think the film is set decades in the past. But the world of The Starling Girl — misogynistic, repressed and emotionally twisted as it is — very much exists here in the 21st century.
Set in a fundamentalist Christian community in small-town Kentucky, The Starling Girl is the debut feature from writer-director Laurel Parmet. It’s also a showcase for some largely undersung talent. Viewers may recognize Eliza Scanlan (our lead, Jem Starling) from Little Women and HBO’s Sharp Objects, or Jimmi Simpson (her father Paul) from Westworld, or from his role as It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia fan favorite Liam McPoyle. You might even recognize Wrenn Schmidt (Jem’s mother Heidi) if you’re a fan of Apple TV+’s For All Mankind. But by and large, these are very strong performers who, despite consistent work, haven’t gotten their due. And aside from the fact that they’re all uncommonly good-looking with toned physiques and cool hair, they’re very believable as a close-knit family of deeply repressed Bible-thumpers in rural Kentucky.
Jem is 17 and pious, plagued by both hormonal stirrings and a tremendous sense of shame. She’s in the church’s dance troupe (a pretty unthinkable form of worship for those of us from a Church of Christ background) and helps her mother with the housework and tending to her younger siblings. Of course, everyone has their vices. Mom slyly pops pills; Dad secretly swigs booze out in the garage while pining for his days as a secular musician. Into the mix comes late-20s youth pastor Owen (Bill Pullman’s son Lewis, also good-looking with great hair), a smoldering missionary who arrives with a troubled marriage and unorthodox ideas about spirituality.
The odd irony of sexual repression is just how much it turns everything sexual. When lust is a sin, every forbidden glance, every step in the slow, delicate dance of flirtation is that much more powerful and dangerous. And very quickly, Jem and Owen’s relationship transitions from seemingly innocuous May-December tension to something horrible and dark. Despite the fact that the age of consent in Kentucky is 16 (yikes) and the pair’s sexual relationship is technically legal, the power imbalance between the two is undeniable. Owen is charming and manipulative, couching every decision — no matter how self-serving — in the language of spirituality. It’s OK for them to be together, because he’s prayed on it. It’s fine that he’s cheating on his wife, because he now realizes that he misread God’s signs pointing the way toward his first marriage.
Ultimately, of course, it’s the young woman — the temptress, the harlot, the jezebel — who takes the blame among the Starlings’ congregation. There are a few more twists and turns in Parmet’s script, and the first-time director manages a pretty firm grasp of the tension-building required for a story like this one. Cinematographer Brian Lannin — who’s done some interesting work, largely in television — has fun with the bucolic setting, which is tranquil and gorgeous despite the sordid things happening within it.
The Starling Girl is not a fun film. And Parmet’s exploration of the movie’s central theme — the inherent misogyny of fundamentalism and, let’s be honest, culture at large — isn’t necessarily groundbreaking. But it is a rich film, and a dark one, and one that makes a point worth making as long as insular communities, or any communities, allow their young women to be preyed upon: Beware false prophets; beware dangerous men; beware the stories we tell young women to keep them in their place.
