City Girl is a very simple film about a young man who meets and marries a young woman. He takes her back to his family farm and she isn't exactly welcomed with open arms. The story is quite condensed and that makes the romance feel extremely rushed. It doesn't feel right, even if courting before marriage wasn't such a big deal back then. I think to sell some of the stuff that comes later they needed more time to convince the audience that they were truly in love. I still liked their rapport, though and the early scenes were quite charming. The rest of the film, however, is tough to watch. It's not fun watching the things that are done to the City Girl from the title. It's kind of depressing and dark most of the way through the second half of the movie. I was still invested in the plot, so at least they hooked me with the story. The only other problem I had with the film is a personal issue of mine. I find when I watch silent films there's a certain balance of visuals to intertitles that they can't surpass or it will start to bother me. This one was just slightly on the high side for me. There was just too much dialogue we had to read for the amount of scenes we get to watch, it's not out of control, but enough that I noticed (barely.) City Girl is still a solid story that is well-told, just not one I loved.
Review of City Girl
