HOT TICKET: 'The Girl and the Tide'
A timely and timeless ode to The In-Between
No one tells you how to be 23. That’s the point, of course. De-institutionalised, often for the first time; ties are cut. We float adrift. Doubt creeps in and growing pains abound and we chug along without direction. We feel like shit. And we daren’t talk about it.
“I don’t know what I’m doing. I have no idea what I’m doing. I feel like a house by the sea and I’m watching the tide come in. But the thing about the tide is that it just doesn’t stop. It literally never stops. It inches itself closer and closer, and I’ve heard what happened to the village before. How it swallowed it whole. And now it comes for me.”
- The Girl and the Tide
The Developing Room chronicles this tale in their latest short film. The Girl and the Tide is a story of inevitability; of learning to let the wave carry you, lest you be swept under completely. Discontented with life, a girl accidentally attracts the attention of a mysterious and persisting monster. This charming fairy-tale brims with resounding truths about the world we’ve come to live in. Constant comparison, inadequacy, insecurity, isolation - the great irony of the digital age, ever more keenly felt in the wake of COVID.
Harvey John’s script reads like pages ripped from a diary; transcendent in its relatability. He finds the words for what so many contend with - whether a distant memory, a stifling reality, or yet to come. Told in voiceover by The Girl (Emma-Kate Barry) and paired with striking cinematography, John’s poignant poetry is exposing, deeply comforting, fierce in its vulnerability. Do we ever really know who we want to be when we grow up?
Make no mistake: this isn’t some Gen Z pity party. Barry compels with a considered realism that draws us into The Girl’s uncertain world. John’s prose gleams in her hands, carrying us with her as she feels her way through. The Tide leads The Girl through the monotonous trudge to wonderful moments - glimmers of beauty, of hope. She’s reminded why she’s here.
The Tide is no menace. A looming presence, sure - but also a friend. Externalised as a bed-sheeted ghost, The Girl’s endearing companion serves as a reminder that life needn’t be that serious. It’s not as scary as you think. Reminiscent of the nostalgia with which we look back at past anxieties: demystified, unknotted, wishing we’d worried less. It all worked out in the end.
The Girl and the Tide calls into the void; dispels the fabrication that we are somehow alone in all this. The Developing Room will make waves with this timely and timeless ode to The In-Between.
The Developing Room is an award-winning British production house specialising in young adult films, committed to cultivating a safe space for young creatives to learn, grow & mature into artists. Visit their website, or follow them for more @thedevelopingroom.
Exceptional writing, you really bring this to life. Thank you for it. laj
Charming ghost. I wish I had one like that.