Gimme Shelter

     Gimme Shelter  is about 16 year old Apple. Her mother, June, an addict, is both verbally and physically abusive. Apple knows she has to get out of her abusive home. To do this she runs away from her mother and tracks down her father whom she has never known. Apple begs her father, who is a Wall Street Broker, Tom Fitzpatrick, to take her in. In the few days she stays with her father, she learns she's pregnant. Her father's wife takes her to abort her child. When she refuses, Apple is forced to leave her father's home, making her homeless. Apple is on the run yet again. After being in a life-threatening car accident, she is put into a hospital and is taken under the wing of Father McCarthy. He tells Apple of a shelter for pregnant young women run by a woman named Kathy. Here, Apple begins to interact with the other girls who are in the same situation, and she gradually begins to make a family for herself.

     I am going to rate Gimme Shelter with a POP! I really enjoyed this film. So let's get down to business. First I want to talk about Vanessa Hudgens' performance. The role of Apple Bailey is very different from the roles that she is known for. Such as her part in the Disney classic High School Musical, and her part in Sucker Punch and Spring Breakers. I absolutely loved how she portrayed the character Apple. You could really see her transformation into a completely different person to fit the role and I was very glad to see that! There were several other brilliant performances put on by Rosario Dawson (Sun City, Seven Pounds, Death Proof) as June Bailey, Brendan Fraser (The Mummy Trilogy) as Tom Fitzpatrick, James Earl Jones (The Lion King, Star Wars XI: The Return of the Jedi, Conan the Barbarian) and Ann Dowd (Side Effects, Marley & Me, Garden State). Also  props to the director and writer of the film, New York native Ron Krauss.

     One of the things that I thought was really interesting about this film is that it is based off real events. There are shelters like the one Apple came to, and her story is parts of stories of the girls who came to Kathy DiFiore's shelter. If you want to learn more about the shelters or the girls in them, check out Ms. DiFiore's website, http://www.severalsourcesfd.org/.

     So I give this film a POP! However I wouldn't call it a must see. It is a great inspirational film and definitely puts the very real, common situation of these girls out there for people to hear. So these are my thoughts on Gimme Shelter.

Until next time...

                                                    peace out girlscouts!!

 Q&A Following the Screening

NOT MY PHOTOS