Amber Appleton is everything a poor person should be. She smiles, she's optimistic, she works several jobs while she's attending high school and is homeless. She's self sufficient.
This movie could have said something poignant about the value of a person. Instead Abby is held up as someone deserving, not because she's a person, but because she's the very model of what a poor person should be in the eyes of those with a lot more privilege. She's got the tenacity and hardly ever lets the smile slip. The fact that her choices are to live with the abusive alcoholic boyfriend of her mother or be homeless isn't presented as a societal issue.
Her dreams of going to a music school (they focus on making her audition rather than discussing the cost of doing so) feel vapid in the grand scheme of things. Her passion for music is never really at the forefront except perhaps in a single scene. Otherwise they make allusions to it with a small record collection left by her deceased dad.
When her mother and her mother's boyfriend die, all hope is lost and she needs a savior. The big emotional payoff is her receiving some cash from someone who thinks she's deserving of existing... This is what made it truly gross. That she's only saved because she's the very model of a virtuous poor person.
This isn't a story that could happen in other developed places in the world.
This movie could have said something poignant about the value of a person. Instead Abby is held up as someone deserving, not because she's a person, but because she's the very model of what a poor person should be in the eyes of those with a lot more privilege. She's got the tenacity and hardly ever lets the smile slip. The fact that her choices are to live with the abusive alcoholic boyfriend of her mother or be homeless isn't presented as a societal issue.
Her dreams of going to a music school (they focus on making her audition rather than discussing the cost of doing so) feel vapid in the grand scheme of things. Her passion for music is never really at the forefront except perhaps in a single scene. Otherwise they make allusions to it with a small record collection left by her deceased dad.
When her mother and her mother's boyfriend die, all hope is lost and she needs a savior. The big emotional payoff is her receiving some cash from someone who thinks she's deserving of existing... This is what made it truly gross. That she's only saved because she's the very model of a virtuous poor person.
This isn't a story that could happen in other developed places in the world.