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One real highlight is the focus on Jennie
Garth’s character Sarah, a woman afflicted with HIV who is trying her
best to live her life, and gain a romance with a fellow teacher after
coming across a new school she’s teaching in. Garth’s performance is
altogether adequate, and her story should really have been the central
plot, and not Bowen’s. We can watch stories about dumb teens all the
time, it’s not often we can watch a fleshed out character try to live
life with a life threatening disease. Sarah, and her life in the AIDS
clinic is often entertaining, and she ends up being the much more
rounded and interesting character for the film. If anything, Garth is
the reason to watch this.
Don’t have unprotected sex. Many people say
it, a lot of officials warn against it, but not many people practice it.
“Girl, Positive” is another PSA from the Lifetime Network that explores
a young girl who simply didn’t practice safe sex and suffered the
consequences. There are really a lot of factors that could attribute to
her contracting HIV, but the writer never pinpoints the actual source;
that our character Rachel is just as dumb as a bag of rocks. But “Girl,
Positive” in its ways to increase tension and avoid the inevitable
revelation, really just treads water until we finally get to the meat
and bones of the film.
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This involves going through
endless rather forced characterization, and a rather
outlandish scene involving Instant messaging where a
mysterious IM’er reveals to Rachel that yes, she may have
HIV because she slept with a football star a year before.
And also, she may have given it to her current boyfriend.
“Girl, Positive” unfolds like almost every other Lifetime
Movie you’ve ever seen, or avoided. And yes, I’ve seen some;
I do live with women, after all. |
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“Girl, Positive” has its duel stories set
from the beginning, but often feels unbalanced. At times, we’re focused
on Rachel and her journey into learning and dealing with the fact she’s
HIV Positive, and then on to Sarah, who deals with her HIV and is afraid
to get close to anyone, etc. Regardless, whether or not “Girl, Positive”
is intended this way, Silvers writes it in a way that’s often meandering
and hardly ever sure where it’s going. But “Girl, Positive” has that one
message that states the obvious, yet will never get through to our
audience. Good parenting and open sexuality counts for a lot in this
world, and means life or death. It’s a good message, but sadly one lost
in a sea of goofy video confessionals, a scattered story, and a rather
unfocused plot.
It’s not the typical Lifetime PSA crap, but
it’s not a prime cut of beef, either; hopefully this will open the lines
of communication, and conveys a relevant message about the power of good
parenting. Teenagers will have sex, you can't stop that, and abstinence
doesn't work, but safe sex does. Sadly, “Girl, Positive” is often meandering, sloppy, and spends
too much time on vapid characters and goofy plot devices, even if the
message is priceless.
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