How can an ageless, shape-shifting alien subvert a classic film trope for female characters? Director John Cameron Mitchell attempts to answer this question in the film adaptation of Neil Gaman’s short story How To Talk To Girls At Parties. I attended the film’s North American premiere, a part of POP Montreal, on Sunday, Sept. 17 at Cinema du Parc. The short story is entirely told by Enn, an awkward 15-year-old boy from Croydon, England and his experience at an odd party where he meets several peculiar, outlandish girls. The film focuses on one specific girl, Zan, who is revealed to be an alien. Enn (very quickly) forms a relationship with Zan, showing her the underground punk scene of the late 70s. We enter the film through Enn’s view, as the events in the bulk of the film are framed around his life. This indicates that this is his story to tell, as if Zan was merely something that happened to him. As it became clear that the audience would be presented this film primarily from Enn’s perspective, a question dawned on me that often does when watching a film in which a straight male protagonist falls in love: “Is this going to be another Manic Pixie Dream Girl movie?”
The term “Manic Pixie Dream Girl”(MPDG) was coined by film critic Nathan Rabin in an article from 2007 about the film Elizabethtown. He describes the MPDG as “a fantasy figure who exists solely…to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.” Essentially, she is a ‘fun’ and ‘exciting’ and ‘different’ character who lacks any complexity or realistic qualities beyond her quirky interests. She is the ideal dream girl for outsider-loner types who typically have no luck with women. Examples that come to mind are, as Rabin points out, Nathalie Portman’s character Sam in Garden State, Zooey Deschanel as Summer in 500 Days of Summer and—it breaks my heart to say this—Penny Lane in Almost Famous, played by Kate Hudson.
As I continued watching How To Talk To Girls At Parties, I was initially comforted. Zan wasn’t a manic pixie dream girl after all! She may be super weird—which can be annoying in these types of films because female characters are typically that weird just to make them seem unique and, thus, more desirable—but she is this way for a reason. She is an alien, so her grasp on human nature and regular social interactions isn’t so tight. She’s not just weird for the sake of being weird. For example, when Enn tells her she is acting “punk” by cutting her uniform, she asks him what “the punk” is. In any other circumstance this statement would be painfully irritating, but because she genuinely has no idea what it means, it makes sense. Another significant element of the film that contradicts the MPDG trope is that we are let into her world without Enn’s gaze. Zan’s issues with her alien colony play out while Enn is not around and continue to exist without his knowledge. Thus, Zan has her own stand-alone plot that, for the most part, has nothing to do with Enn.
The biggest indicator, however, that Zan was entering MPDG territory wasn’t how she was presented or what her character traits were, but rather the fact that Enn still liked her. I mean, SHE’S AN ALIEN! She gives very clear—albeit unintentional—indications that she doesn’t understand how things work on Earth (not just in Croydon, as Enn assumes she is American). Throughout the film, Enn doesn’t learn much concrete information about her; he makes hardly any effort to ask her any personal questions while continuing to develop feelings for her. This indicates that she is more of an alluring concept—the eccentric foreigner—to him rather than a real person. Because she’s not a real person, it makes sense that she acts the way she does, but it doesn’t explain why he just goes accepts her beyond strange antics at face value, while still unaware of her true identity. It’s almost like the filmmakers wanted so badly to escape the label of the MPDG that they adapted a story about an alien girl so they could use it as an excuse as to why she’s “not like other girls”—because she literally can’t be.
While the film steers away from the act of creating female characters for the sole purpose of advancing a male character’s plot by giving Zan an extensive backstory and actual conflict of her own, I still got the sense that this was Enn’s story. Her purpose is still somewhat to enter the life of the “nice boy” and change him, MPDG style. However, it’s worth acknowledging that he seems to have the same effect on her—he enters her life at just the right time to make her realize that she wants to experience regular human life. He introduces her to “the punk” and inspires her to break away from her colony, if only for a little while. How To Talk To Girls At Parties hasn’t quite subverted the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, but it’s getting there.