Female Film Critics 24/375
Part Behind the Music episode, part intimate video diary, and part indictment of the way the music industry treats women, director Amy Goldstein’s Kate Nash: Underestimate the Girl is a frank, endearing documentary about what it means to “make it.” It was filmed over the course of four and a half years, following rocker/actress Kate Nash as she figures out what comes after her big break — and the slump that followed it.
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As musical biopics go, Amy Goldstein’s Kate Nash: Underestimate the Girl is what would happen if American Idol’s backstories of its aspiring singing contestants had less heart-tugging sob content and more honesty about how becoming a chart-topping star is not quite what it is cracked up to be these days. That is especially true for females in the industry, no matter how fiercely feminist they are. Nash’s struggles to continue to be an artist are very real.
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Amy Goldstein’s film illustrates why both women and men underestimate, or neglect women who create independently in both film and music. We expect women to scream, artistically or sometimes even literally, in order to be noticed. We expect them to be lauded by the powers that be. Or, we expect them to self-destruct. But, Kate Nash is a performer and creator who finds a way to speak her truth, loudly and creatively, as a woman, and on her own terms.
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Kate Nash: Underestimate the Girl is director Amy Goldstein’s engrossing, entertaining gut punch of a behind-the-music documentary. Singer/songwriter Nash is the creative young woman at the center who struggles mightily against misogyny and exploration at every turn. For those not familiar with the British Nash, she became a pop star with a huge fan base of mostly young women after her 2007 smash hit Foundations.
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