The Holy Girl

(2004)

★ 6.6 IMDb · 108 votes

Genres: Drama

Year: 2004

Runtime: 106 мин

Country: Argentina, Italy

Director: Lucrecia Martel

Cast: María Alché, Mercedes Morán, Хульета Сильберберг, Carlos Belloso, Alejandro Urdapilleta, Миа Маэстро, Marta Lubos, Arturo Goetz, Alejo Mango, Mónica Villa

Plot

Amalia is an adolescent girl who is caught in the throes of her emerging sexuality and her deeply held passion for her Catholic faith. These two drives mingle when the visiting Dr. Jano takes advantage of a crowd to get inappropriately close to the girl. Repulsed by him but inspired by an inner burning, Amalia decides it is her God-given mission to save the doctor from his behavior, and she begins to stalk Dr. Jano, becoming a most unusual voyeur.

ENT physicians gather at a provincial hotel in Salta. The hotel owner, Helena, is subdued, brittle, avoiding the calls of her ex-husband's pregnant wife. Family dysfunction seems everywhere. Helena's daughter, Amalia, about 14, discusses vocations in a Catholic girls group. Their teen imaginations conflate the erotic, the religious, and the lurid. Amalia notices Dr. Jano, and he notices her. She decides to make him her vocation, she follows him, he rubs against her in a public crowd, he's appalled at his actions. Meanwhile, Helena believes Jano is attracted to her even though he's married. Longing, guilt, scandal, and teen sensuality are set to collide.