Rating: 4.5/5
Anti-Criterion Challenge 2024 | 18/52 | Directed by Lois Weber
2010 Restoration
This flower had not had a fair chance to bloom in the garden of life. The worm of poverty had entered the folded bud and spoiled it.
Sixteen-year-old Eva works at a five-and-dime, bringing home a pitiful earning to her parents and three sisters. They can only afford rent and some groceries on her wage — her father doesn’t work, preferring beer and books to work.
Eva’s feet ache from her broken shoes that she mends with cardboard. With just a little more money, she could afford a new pair. So, “she sells herself for a new pair of shoes.”
The film is an early realist work that emphasizes the physical and psychological cost of poverty. Critics at the time complained that the movie was “too realistic.”
Mary MacLaren’s performance is subdued, carrying the weight of each scene behind her eyes.
The cinematography makes surprising choices, like following her walking at shoe level — the shot feels so modern! It also has the earliest “broken person looking into a broken mirror” I’ve seen.
Compared to later neorealist films, this movie is a tad melodramatic. Otherwise, this is one of the most sincere and intimate portrayals of women’s struggles from the silent era.