Girlfriend, a Heart-wrenching tale of Unconventional Love

In his first full-length feature film “Girlfriend,” director Justin Lerner explores the tense, heart-wrenching relationship between two struggling, small town friends-turned-unconventional-lovers. As a young man with Down syndrome, Evan Sneider (played by himself) attempts to rid his status as the town’s outcast. When Sneider confesses his affection for longtime crush Candy – a single mother with emotional baggage of her own – it leads to an eccentric romance filled with hope and heartbreak. Viewers will leave the theater with a renewed appreciation of the joys and sorrows of mankind’s most revered emotion: love.

“Girlfriend,” the first U.S. feature-film starring a person with Down syndrome, explores the disability (characterized by the presence of an extra copy of genetic material on the 21^st chromosome, usually resulting in some impairment of cognitive ability and physical growth) with pure, blunt sensibility. Viewers do not sympathize for Sneider as an individual with this mental handicap, but as someone struggling to find love and companionship – something that all humans face at some point in time. Although in his mid-to-late-20s, Sneider – with his thin-rimmed spectacles, light freckles, and bowl-trimmed haircut – is a man trapped in a youth’s body, trying to break into the world of adulthood.

The film introduces the close relationship between dependent Sneider and his hardworking mother Celeste (Amanda Plummer) as they try to make ends meet earning meager wages at the local diner. With the sudden death of Celeste ten minutes into the film (unfortunately ridding the plot of what promised to be a powerful character) Sneider finds himself alone with an unexpected inheritance left in his mother’s will. He then attempts to pursue the town’s stunning troublemaker Candy, played by Shannon Woodward (“The Riches”). Sneider still perceives Candy as the cute, bubbly girl that he knew back in high school. But now, with her dull, sunken eyes and pale complexion, Woodward conveys the look of a youth tarnished by the demands of single parenthood and a dangerously jealous ex-boyfriend. When Candy and her son get evicted, they shack up with Sneider, who eventually gives them his entire inheritance to help pay off their debts.

Viewers grimace when acquaintances, portraying themselves as true friends, take advantage of Sneider’s innocence. Although Candy feels unworthy of Sneider’s compassion, she takes his money and allows him to believe that she is his girlfriend, going as far as taking a bath in front of him. Candy’s ex-flame Russ, played by a fiery Jackson Rathbone, fabricates a bond with Sneider in order to elicit personal information about Candy. The role-playing and deception lead to an abrupt plot-twist, allowing Sneider to transform his image as an incompetent, handicapped figure into the lone hero of the film. Candy finally acknowledges the goodness of Sneider as a friend and potential lover.

The film lacks in one critical area; Sneider, Woodward, and Rathbone exhibit the zest and fervor of their individual characters and personalities, but lack enthusiasm when it comes to the chemistry amongst each other. The uncomfortable encounters between Sneider and Candy as a “couple” seem forced on Woodward’s part. When Candy finally gives in to Sneider’s sexual desires, the audience is left with a sense of awkwardness rather than cinematic closure. It is although she is performing a personal duty rather than making love (the film never divulges in such physicality, hence has no rating). Woodward’s sense of detachment speaks of her portrayal of Candy – a woman drained of physical and mental love – but so much so that her character becomes unlikeable rather than pitiful. Closure is somewhat restored right before the credits roll, when Candy grasps Sneider’s hand in an act of union. Whether romantically-driven or a symbol of friendship, Sneider seems content with the outcome.

Sneider, the breakout star at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, carries the film through the intensity of his crisp, unblinking eyes. They transmit the trials of an innocent youth who wants nothing more than to do good for his loved ones. Sneider fully embodies his real life struggles with Down syndrome and successfully conveys them onto the big screen – viewers cannot help but shudder when Sneider sheepishly confides to Candy, “Sometimes I wish I could escape my body.” Sneider portrays the off-camera chemistry between actor and director brilliantly onscreen. When Sneider’s emotions reach a breaking point and it seems his behavior towards Candy may lead to extremes, Lerner provides a sort of shocking suspense without going overboard on the drama. Sneider soon learns to react to such rash instincts and desires of the heart; a pitfall of human nature exposed vividly and triumphantly onscreen. 

In “Girlfriend,” Lerner strips Sneider of his exterior innocence, providing a morally complex and authentic character anyone with a history of emotional compassion can relate to. It goes to show just how powerful the functioning of the human heart can be.