If you like MTV videos, God Help the Girl is your treat – a feature-length, head-nodding toe-tapper drenched in popsicle colors and punched up with hip-hop editing that blends evocative background shots of Glasgow (looking like Hogwarts-by-the-Clyde) with loving, kissably large close-ups of Emily Browning as a terminally cute Glasgow indie-popper. 

God Help the Girl has a bit of a weak script but boasts a terrific backstory. (More about that below.) But who needs a strong story when a film has Emily Browning and enough great music to fill three albums? If you like MTV videos, this is your treat – a feature-length, head-nodding toe-tapper drenched in popsicle colors and punched up with hip-hop editing that blends evocative background shots of Glasgow (looking like Hogwarts-by-the-Clyde) with loving, kissably large close-ups of the three adorable lead actors. 

GHTG is a winning testament to the musical genius of writer/director Stuart Murdock, who penned all of the songs. (The credits at the end of the film assign all of the film's music -- at least 24 original songs – to Murdoch, in addition to crediting "additional music by S. Murdoch.") 

The slimmest of pretexts supports this musical carnival-ride of Ringling proportions. As a dramatic vehicle, you might say GHTG is facile-fueled and could have benefited from some soul-arc energy. 

When we first meet Eve (Emily Browning), she's plunged in darkness, listening to the late-night radio ramblings of two notorious BBC 6 pop music mavens who cover the independent music scene like American sportscasters cover the NFL. Slipping out a window, she drops to the pavement, slinks down a dark alley and breaks into a song about how she's "bored out of my mind." 

Eve has escaped from a nut house but it's not exactly clear why she has been institutionalized (Tragic loss of parents? Sexual abuse? Genetically predisposed to depression?) It's clear that Eve is in a sorry state – a borderline passive-aggressive-autistic who breathes pills like most people swallow air. 

When she is caught and returned to confinement, a sympathetic shrink suggests (somewhat belatedly, you might think) "Why don't you start keeping a diary and write about the things that concern you?" Next thing you know, the kid is gushing lyrics like a pop-music fire hydrant. 

Suddenly Eve has a goal in life. Pop stardom. Driven by her dream, she takes flight and finds refuge in the pop underground of modern Glasgow's pubs, bars and ballrooms. Soon, she's sharing a small flat with James (Olly Alexander) and Cassie (Hannah Murray), a pair of indie-pop wannabees. 

The culturally clueless (like this reviewer) may be surprised to discover that Browning is also a singer of great persuasion. Her voice is pure, nimble and riveting in its emotional phrasing. No question: Emily Browning can sell a song. Cass and James also do a good job of laying down their licks. 

What does it take to write a song? Not much, apparently. The once-closeted Eve has become a song-writing savant who can whip out a tune without a moment's thought. 

"What did you do this morning?" Eve asks her song-writers-blocked friend Cassie. "Well," Cassie replies, "I got up, took a shower, got dressed, had breakfast." Zam! Suddenly Eve has a new song and our three musical stars are jamming onscreen while a studio orchestra swells invisibly in the background. 

And you can forget about the usual screen story about the nuts-and-bolts drudgery of perfecting songs and starting a band. Nobody is seen rehearsing the music. Eve's band doesn't develop as much as it materializes – on stage and on cue. They just hop on a stage -- pre-stocked with drummers, guitarists and violinists ready to play Eve's newest tunes -- and suddenly everyone is dancing and grinning like a roomful of chemically enhanced Lottery winners. This is a film that is very pleased with itself – filled with lots of back-and-forth grins, winks and nods between all involved. 

Fortunately, the songs are as irresistibly listenable as Browning is watchable. It's hard to believe this Australia-born actress is 25. Barely topping 5 feet, she looks like she would tip the scales at 80 pounds. She has the skinny build of a post-adolescent still trying to make it through teenhood. 

Browning remains terminally cute and the film is buoyed by backup faces that are high-calorie screen-candy but there are believability problems aplenty. How about a plot-twist that relies on dog-teengirl telepathy? And somehow, despite Eve's status as a jobless runaway who is never seen toting a purse, let alone a suitcase, she keeps popping up in the most fetching outfits. 

(Go with it! Like an MTV video, GHTG inhabits a fantasy world. And one with a great soundtrack.) 

"Come Monday Night" from the album, God Help the Girl

Before it was a movie, GHTG was a chart-busting album. And before there was an album, there was Stuart Murdoch, the song-writing front man for the Scottish indie-pop band Belle & Sebastian. 

In 2003, as the story goes, Murdoch was out for a morning run when a tune popped into his head. He hurried back to his Glasgow apartment where the song, "God Help the Girl," simply jumped onto the page. Other songs quickly followed but none of them. Murdoch realized, were "Belle & Sebastian tunes." As the songs spilled forth, a number of characters -- Eve, James and Cassie -- began to take shape in Murdoch's notebooks as well. Three years later, during a break from touring, Murdoch sat down to turn his notes into a screenplay. He also decided to turn his growing songbook into an album. When he posted an open call for singers on the Internet, 30 singers sent performance videos and 400 others auditioned. 

The open call from Glawgow caught the attention of Barry Mendel, a film producer in LA and a long-time Belle & Sebastian fan. Mendel loved the idea of an album and, in a email to Murdoch, he made an offer: "I'm a fan and I work in movies." 

By the time the two hooked up, Murdoch had a partially completed screenplay that ran 240 pages. Mendel told Murdoch to submit a second draft and then essentially told Murdoch to toss it all in the dumpster and start over. That was 2008. 

In 2009, Murdoch busied himself producing an album of his orphan songs. It was released to critical acclaim. 

Murdoch flew to LA to meet with Mendel. Working in a hotel room and buoyed by boxes of chocolate and bottles of whiskey, they transferred Murdock's latest script into stacks of color-coded index cards and went to work rearranging them on the floor. Many songs and scenes didn't survive the shuffle. Those that did became the basis of the film's final screenplay. 

But now it was 2010 and time for Murdoch to write and record a new Belle & Sebastian album (Write About Love) before undertaking a world concert tour. 

With the tour over and the screenplay in hand, now it was time to look for financing. BBC Films and the British Film Institute gave the project the cold shoulder. Even support from Scotland's government arts agency wasn't sufficient so, in December 2012, Murdoch turned to a Kickstarter campaign. In 30 days, Belle & Sebastian fans from 51 countries contributed $121,000 to finance the film. 

A casting call drew applications from more than 2,000 actors. (All of the three leads in the final film are die-hard Belle & Sebastian fans. In addition to being an actor, Olly Alesxander is a singer and guitarist with his own band, Years and Years.) 

Once the film was shot, it had to be edited. A process that usually takes three months, max, for an independent film wound up consuming eight months. Most of the work was conducted in "a mid-sized coat closet in Glasgow's West End" where a bucket had to be set on the floor to catch the water dripping from a leaking roof. The editors had to down "burly coats" to work in the unheated room. The editing was finished in the spring of 2013. At the end of the film's ten-year gestation, the GHTG crew was justifiably proud to boast that the entire film had been "written, shot, edited, scored and mixed in Glasgow." 

Belle & Sebastian - I Want The World To Stop (October 2010)