Rent The Fits (2015)

A Mild Case - The Fits review by griggs

There's a terrific short film hiding in here, popping out in fits and starts around the odd spell of staring at walls.

Toni swaps the boxing gym for the dance team, where the rules are harder to read. Royalty Hightower is superb, mostly by keeping still. Toni watches for ages before she speaks, and you can never quite tell what she's taking in.

The best bit is the routines. Once the girls start drilling, copying and correcting each other, the team's fits look like group behaviour spreading. Anna Rose Holmer parks the camera in empty corridors until you start checking behind you.

The trouble is the film keeps the fits at such a cool distance that they never rattle me. I wanted to know Toni and the other girls better, so the mystery would matter. At 72 minutes it still feels stretched, which takes a special sort of indie magic.

The fits are contagious, and I caught a mild case.

Ugly and boring - The Fits review by Alphaville

Grossly over-rated movie about an 11yo girl joining a troupe of female dancers who sometimes gyrate as though having fits. Forget plot or characterisation, or even much dialogue, in this cheap-looking single-location indie movie full of annoyingly boisterous women cavorting around in their studio. There may be some confused message about coming-of-age, belonging and even health, but you’re unlikely to care or hang around for the whole mind-sapping duration. The opening shot, of the girl doing sit-ups in close-up while she counts, is typical of a director who, even with a run time of only 70 minutes, elongates scenes well past the point of boredom. 1, 2, 3... 21, 22…