✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we send newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Support Us Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Shopping
  • CW SHOPS
  • Support Us
  • Get Started
  • Tickets
  • CW SHOPS
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
Cinema

The Fits film review ★★★★★

24 Feb 17 – 24 Apr 17, Times vary

There's a reason why 'The Fits explained' is a common Google search, but this waking dream (starring one Royalty Hightower) defies interpretation

By CW Contributor on 22/2/2017

The Fits movie review
The Fits movie review
The Fits film review 3 The Fits film review Matthew Robinson
Moonlight is a quiet, enigmatic film that works elliptically around its themes of race and gender performativity; The Fits, which is so spare and laconic it makes Moonlight look like The Lego Batman Movie, touches on similar themes so lightly that it barely makes contact.



Anna Rose Holmer’s film might make for a strange and intriguing commentary on the coming-of-age genre, or it might not – its subtexts are hidden under a surface so glacially cool and slow that only the most attentive will be able to discern anything there at all. That’s not to say that The Fits isn’t an interesting film, just that it’s also a boring one, and your appreciation of it probably depends on whether or not you find that description to be contradictory.


Eleven-year-old Toni (Royalty Hightower) lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, and regularly trains with her older brother in the boxing gym of the local community centre. Apart from her, the gym is an entirely male domain, in marked contrast to the hall where the dance team practises. There, the older girls drill their protégés in the confrontational, haughty choreography of dance-offs and synchronised athletic displays.


Tough, six-packed little Toni has noticed this troupe, and is drawn to their elaborate practise routines and Mean Girl leaders. After she ditches the boxing gym for the dance floor, though, something inexplicable and sinister starts happening: one by one, the teenage girls start collapsing, suffering from the strange titular fits.


Is it something in the water? Is it a catchable disease – an STI? Is it just adolescence, or womanhood, in allegorical form? Holmer is not only content to leave it entirely unexplained, but to suggest possible interpretations – literal and metaphorical – as faintly as possible. There’s a slightly surreal ending that might reconfigure your reading of The Fits if you watch it again. But will you?


What The Fits film review
Where Various Locations | MAP
Nearest tube Leicester Square (underground)
When 24 Feb 17 – 24 Apr 17, Times vary
Price £determined by cinema
Website Click here for more details



Most popular

Things to do in London this weekend: 24–26 March. Photo: The Parakeet, Kentish Town
Things to do in London this weekend: 24–26 March
Irene Maiorino and Alba Rohrwacher in My Brilliant Friend season 4, HBO/Sky Atlantic (Photo: HBO)
My Brilliant Friend, season 4, Sky Atlantic: first-look photo, release date, plot, cast
Best art exhibitions in London. Photo: Thin Air at the Beams
Top exhibitions on now in London

Editor's Picks

Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga, 'Loving' – Jeff Nichols film,
Interview with Jeff Nichols, director of Loving
The very best of Fifty Shades Darker
The very best of Fifty Shades Darker
Love season 2, Netflix
What to watch: the best TV this March
La La Land Oscars Best Picture nominee
Oscar nominee screenings, Barbican
Xavier Dolan film It's Only the End of the World – Marion Cotillard (Inception)
It's Only the End of the World film review
Cameraperson – Kirsten Johnson film
Cameraperson film review
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).

Cinema

Drama

You might like

  • Matt Damon - The Great Wall film 2017

    The Great Wall film review ★★★★★

  • Michael Keaton – The Founder review

    The Founder film review ★★★★★

  • Hidden Figures cast – Janelle Monáe, Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer

    Hidden Figures film review ★★★★★

  • Moonlight film 2017

    Moonlight film review ★★★★★

  • Oscar nominated Viola Davis and Denzel Washington – Fences film 2017

    Fences film review ★★★★★

  • Joel Edgerton, Ruth Negga – Loving, Jeff Nichols film

    Loving film review ★★★★★



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • Support Us
  • Tickets
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×