Girl 6 is a 1996 American romantic thriller black comedy film directed by Spike Lee about a young innocent struggling actress living in New York City, who becomes a phone sex operator. Theresa Randle played the title character, and playwright Suzan-Lori Parks wrote the screenplay. The soundtrack is composed entirely of songs written by Prince. The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival. Directors Quentin Tarantino and Ron Silver make cameo appearances as film directors at a pair of interesting auditions. It is the first film directed by Lee in which he did not write the screenplay.
This Spike Lee film examines the life of an aspiring actress in New York. She is upset by the treatment of women in the movie industry during one of her screen tests with ‘QT’. Out of work and desperate for money, she decides to take a job as a phone-sex operator. Here, unlike her previous dealings with potential employers, her (female) boss is kind, caring, and sensitive. Later, she begins to get too engrossed in her work and starts to lose touch with reality, represented by her friend and neighbor, Jimmy.
This was…an odd movie to say the least. This was a movie that really did feel like it was all over the place, there wasn’t really much of a stable plot to work with and the overall finished product just seemed weird.
There are enjoyable aspects to it, mostly in the performances, I loved watching Theresa Randle in this, I thought she carried the movie and anytime she was on screen she was really good, her and Spike Lee have some nice moments together on screen and their chemistry works well enough as do her chemistry with Isaiah Washington.
Once in a while you do get a good joke and good banter but once again, they never feel like they go all the way with the ideas that they have here. The premise is an intriguing one but it says a lot when a movie like For A Good Time, Call… from a couple years back did this very similar premise much better than what Spike Lee could do…but then again, Lee didn’t write this, this is the first film that he directed that he didn’t pen. And sadly, it shows, Lee’s writing really would’ve brought another level to this that could’ve saved it but sadly that wasn’t the case.
I don’t know, to me, Girl 6 seemed like Spike Lee’s first attempt to try to broaden his audience outside of the norm but it just never really came together all that well. There are times when the movie can work, largely the performances and some of the comedy and more serious moments but overall, it seemed like Lee was trying to go for a more mainstream approach to this but it just didn’t connect all that well and it feels kind of lost in the end.
An overall disappointment but luckily, Lee would redeem himself later on this very same year with a far superior movie that we’ll get to next week.
Follow The Reviewing Network at our Facebook page at Facebook.com/TheReviewingNetwork for continuing updates and debuts for new blog posts and also follow my Twitter feed so you can see new postings right as they are posted.
The Reviewing Network 
Leave a comment