For students in high school, identity can be an important concept to consider. During a normal school year not faced by COVID-19, there are sports, studies, music, friends, clubs, etc. Any or all of these can influence how a teen’s peers see them, which can be make a huge difference for someone who chooses to express themselves differently than others. In Disney’s latest live-action drama, Stargirl, based on the novel by Newberry Award-winning author Jerry Spinelli, home-school transfer student Stargirl Caraway discovers both sides of this issue.
Played by America’s Got Talent winner and charted pop musician Grace VanderWaal, Stargirl is what many used to call a “hippie.” Dressed in overalls and Neapolitan-striped sweaters or retro doily dresses with flowers in her hair, she greets her everyone she encounters with a smile, leaves presents for strangers, and plays the ukulele. Her path crosses with Leo (Graham Verchere), producer of the school’s television show, and she greets him with a birthday song in the cafeteria, despite never having officially met him.
This isn’t a typical teen love drama though. Stargirl and Leo’s relationship flowers and decays as much as her popularity in school changes throughout the film. Meanwhile, she becomes a cheerleading ukuleleist and speech debate professional. Along the way, she learns how it feels to shunned by peers for caring about people and events others feel are beneath them, or for acting differently than what is considered “normal.”
Disney’s adaptation, while an excellent representation of Spinelli’s novel, arrives with more joy and a soundtrack straight out of the early 1980s, including music by the Cars and the Go-Go’s. Given the age of the novel, many of Stargirl’s idiosyncrasies are not often considered as strange as they might have been at the beginning of the century—a time before “hippie” simply became “retro.” With the exception of her constant ukulele, much of what the school gawks at her for canbe written off as one of many styles common for the current generation. The outcomes of her selfless actions for various people in town are therefore played up more as disaster. To balance the film’s mood, the directors incorporate VanderWaal’s musical grace.
Having premiered on Disney+ at the start of the national quarantine, this film is the perfect escape for families stuck at home, as well as a wonderful way to help young students discover their own identities in a world where they’re not surrounded by friends daily.
Stargirl is available on Disney+, available to subscribers for $6.99/mo. For more information, visit: disneyplus.com.
