Rude Girls (2004)

This insightful, shocking and often funny film highlights the difficulties of growing up female in a world of criminal behaviour, meaningless violence and exclusion.

Fourteen-year old Sherry and her friend Rachel are enjoying one of their favourite leisure activities: harassing the local Hasidic Jewish population. Best mates D and Stacy cruise their Dagenham ‘hood, on the lookout for the next car to steal.

Morgan Matthews’ revelatory film starts as an examination of girl gangs but evolves into an illuminating exploration of adolescence and the many factors underlying these troubled girls’ behaviour.

We delve into the personal stories and motivations of the girls as they enter young adulthood. Here, father figures are notably absent, and mothers often have only tenuous control over their daughters’ lives.

By turns threatened and threatening, what is overwhelmingly important to all the girls are their friendships with each other and their loyalty to the gang.