The Holy Girl (La Nina Santa) (2004)

76% of critics liked it
(58 reviews)
55% of users liked it
(1,926 ratings)

Lucrecia Martel directed this potent drama of love, sex, misunderstanding, and coming-of-age. Amalia (María Alche) is a girl edging into her early teens who has begun to ripen into adulthood. Amalia lives in a big hotel owned and operated by her divorced mother, Helena (Mercedes Morán), and her… More Lucrecia Martel directed this potent drama of love, sex, misunderstanding, and coming-of-age. Amalia (María Alche) is a girl edging into her early teens who has begun to ripen into adulthood. Amalia lives in a big hotel owned and operated by her divorced mother, Helena (Mercedes Morán), and her uncle Freddy (Alejandro Urdapilleta). Amalia and her best friend, Josefina (Julieta Zylberberg), are becoming increasingly aware of their own desires and are curious about sex, but between their Catholic education and Helena's unwillingness to discuss such matters with her daughter, their speculation outstrips their actual knowledge. A convention for medical workers brings Dr. Jano (Carlos Belloso) and a number of his colleagues to the hotel. Emboldened by the festive atmosphere, the timid doctor presses his body up against Amalia's, unaware of her age. The married Dr. Jano is embarrassed by his actions and troubled by his strong attraction to Helena; Amalia, meanwhile, is convinced the doctor has become overcome with unholy lust, and she and Josefina take it upon themselves to save him from himself before it is too late. La Niña Santa (aka The Holy Child) was produced in part by internationally acclaimed filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: R, 1 hr. 43 min.
Directed By: Lucrecia Martel
Written By: Lucrecia Martel
Genres: Art House & International, Drama

In Theaters: Apr 29, 2005 Limited
On DVD: Sep 6, 2005
Studio: Fine Line Features

Critic Reviews

Kerry Lengel, Arizona Republic
Director Lucrecia Martel's storytelling is spare to the point of being stingy.
Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
A very intelligent movie marked by candor and compassion.
Tom Long, Detroit News
Ultimately turns out to be something of a bore, a film that, like one of its main characters, wanders around touching on subjects and then fleeing before connecting fully.
Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press
A uniquely intriguing motion picture.
Bob Strauss, Dallas Morning News
A low-key tone poem about the passions of sex and religion
Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star
Martel has a wicked way with atmosphere.
Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com
With this well executed drama, a follow-up to her La Cienega, Lucrecia Martel emerges as a major Argentinean filmmaker.
Michele Kenner, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Some of The Holy Girl is hard to follow, but the reward is Martel's ability to create a spiritual yet subtly lecherous mood.
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Martel's distinctive and fascinatingly innovative style warrants her being considered as an auteur.
Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
...at once humane, encompassing every shade of gray, and bracingly cold-eyed in its assessment of human endeavor.
James Plath, Reel.com
In some ways, this quiet and moody character study is a more realistic and less titillating version of Lolita. Certainly it's far less of a male fantasy . . . .
Jeff Vice, Deseret News, Salt Lake City
Obviously, this one is not for all tastes, but it is an impressive showing for Argentine filmmaker Martel, who's managed to do Almodovar-type material every bit as well as her mentor.
Chris Barsanti, Filmcritic.com
what should have been a religious experience comes off more like a botched coming-of-age tale with some pungent atmospherics.
John Hartl, Seattle Times
Martel's style is tentative, elusive, so much so that even the most conventional episodes benefit from her fresh perspective.
Gianni Truzzi, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Provokes a wealth of unsettling thought, even as it declines to pass any final judgments of its own.
Tim Appelo, Seattle Weekly
Alche's crooked grin is as gleeful as the nose-wriggling enchantress in Bewitched. The elliptically implicit ending reminds me of Purple Noon minus the murder.
Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone, TheMovieChicks.com
A series of fractured tales that never resolve, never explain anything, and never get any more interesting.
Frank Swietek, One Guy's Opinion
The subtly sinister atmosphere is certainly striking...but the story is so fragmentary and allusive that trying to make much sense of it is rather like grasping at smoke.

Read all 18 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

William D

"The Holy Girl" is one of the most boring films I've ever seen. Set in a hotel during a doctors' conference, it chronicles myriad banalities such as people having lunch together silently. Then we watch maids doing laundry. Then the children of hotel employees take… More
"The Holy Girl" is one of the most boring films I've ever seen. Set in a hotel during a doctors' conference, it chronicles myriad banalities such as people having lunch together silently. Then we watch maids doing laundry. Then the children of hotel employees take religion classes together. Then teenage girls wash their hair, etc. One banal sequence after another. One girl who lives at the hotel starts to have feelings of longing for one of the doctors at the conference after he touches her in a provocative way one day. She starts following him around the hotel, and he tries to avoid her. The girl's mother also develops a mild crush on this doctor, which is hard to understand because he barely ever speaks or does anything interesting. Almost no one says anything interesting. There is practically no script at all. I cannot understand what writer/director Lucrecia Martel thought was so interesting about all these banalities. Her most recent film, "The Headless Woman," was vastly more interesting. By contrast, "The Holy Girl" has almost no content whatsoever. This is a must-avoid.
Walter M

[font=Century Gothic]In "The Holy Girl", Helena(Mercedes Moran), a divorcee with a teenaged daughter, Amalia(Maria Alche), works at a hotel hosting a convention of doctors. Amalia is so devout it occasionally spooks her mother, and is wondering how best she can serve Christ.… More
[font=Century Gothic]In "The Holy Girl", Helena(Mercedes Moran), a divorcee with a teenaged daughter, Amalia(Maria Alche), works at a hotel hosting a convention of doctors. Amalia is so devout it occasionally spooks her mother, and is wondering how best she can serve Christ. An opportunity presents itself when one of the doctors at the hotel, Dr. Jano(Carlos Bellos), fondles Amalia at an outdoor musical performance. Instead of confronting or reporting him, this only serves to pique Amalia's curiosity...[/font] [font=Century Gothic]"The Holy Girl" is an unconventional movie that takes a low-key approach to potentially controversial material. It is a meditation on duality.(Would it be too much of a stretch to point out that Janus was the Roman god represented by two faces?) Amalia is very religious; wants to wait until marriage before having sex but still has physical longings. Dr. Jano is a respected doctor and family man but is also quite the pervert.(And he is not the only doctor to behave differently away from home.)[/font]
Dimitris S

Martel defies the canonized "Catholic" topics by alienating the values of love,detest and sickness.Inner sickness,vacant passion and finally,that tempest called teenage years.The languid pace of the film doesn't repulse the viewer,on the contrary...I felt more repulsed… More
Martel defies the canonized "Catholic" topics by alienating the values of love,detest and sickness.Inner sickness,vacant passion and finally,that tempest called teenage years.The languid pace of the film doesn't repulse the viewer,on the contrary...I felt more repulsed by the holiness of certain characters,thus giving me a reason to disrespect their religiousness.