Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Confessions of An Invisible Girl’ On Netflix, A Brazilian Coming-of-Age Dramedy About A High School Outcast

We’ve all seen the teen makeover movie before; nerdy girl is derided or excluded by her classmates, gets a new look, and suddenly everyone can’t stop staring. She’s All That, The Princess Diaries, Never Been Kissed, and even Mean Girls have seen the bullied become the beautiful, and alllll their problems seemingly melt away. Confessions of an Invisible Girl, now streaming on Netflix, embraces old teen movie tropes with open arms. 

CONFESSIONS OF AN INVISIBLE GIRL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Tête (Klara Castanho) is a 15-year-old girl without any friends at school. When she’s befriended by school dreamboat Gustavo, she thinks her luck may be changing, but after an awkward encounter involving an attempted kiss, she learns that he only hung out with her to get his grades up. Following this humiliation, Tête’s dad loses his job and they pack up the car to move in with her grandparents in another town. Despite her previous experiences (and her mother and grandmother’s repeated criticisms of her “mustache”, eyebrows, and general appearance), she’s still hopeful about her new school, but her excessive nervous sweating and lack of filter don’t make the impression she was hoping for.

Mean girl Valentina (Julia Gomes) immediately takes a disliking to Tête, annoyed by her boldness and the way she looks at her boyfriend. Despite this less-than-ideal start at her new school, Tête does find friends in Zeca (Stepan Nercessain), a harsh-but-loving gay guy, and Davi (Gabriel Lima), a nerd who pines for Valentina’s best friend Lais (Fernanda Concon). Though it’s not always easy for Tête, she’s determined to get her happy ending one way or another. It just might not be the one she expects.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Confessions of an Invisible Girl may remind you of another recent Brazilian flick, The Secret Diary of an Exchange Student (helmed by the same director), Netflix original Out of My League, and a little bit of other high school flicks featuring a bullied girl at the center like The Princess Diaries and A Cinderella Story.

Performance Worth Watching: Stepan Nercessian is wonderful as Zeca, a character who initially seems to be catty and instead proves to have one of the biggest hearts of all the students at school. Rather than leaning into the stereotypes that come with a shallow gay best friend character, Nercessain brings some real joy and humanity to Zeca, making him Tête’s number one cheerleader and a strong presence even when everyone else wants to tear him down.

Memorable Dialogue: Dialogue is definitely not the strong point of Confessions of Invisible Girl – it all kind of whizzed past me.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Confessions of an Invisible Girl is a baffling movie. The most obvious issue with it is that its protagonist, Tête, is anything but invisible. She doesn’t fade into the background or get sat on by accident because people don’t notice her like Mia Thermopolis does in The Princess Diaries prior to discovering her royal status; she makes herself known in every room she enters, saying inappropriate things or making a fool of herself in one way or another. The title simply doesn’t suit the film’s protagonist or its story, because if anything, the issue the mean girls and everyone else has with Tête is that she’s too visible.

This big problem aside, however, Confessions of an Invisible Girl is also bizarrely mean-spirited for being as vanilla and tame as it is in most other regards. Tête is not only bullied by Valentina at school, but at home by her mother and grandmother, who openly call her ugly and berate her about her body hair, sweat issues, and lack of social life. It’s depressing. The only comfort comes in the form of the boys Tête befriends at school, but even they seem intent on helping her transform so that she’s no longer the ugly duckling everyone believes her to be. My biggest question is this, though: if Confessions of an Invisible Girl isn’t rooting for its protagonist, how are we supposed to?

Our Call: SKIP IT. Oddly mean-spirited and stocked with cliches, Confessions of an Invisible Girl is a lackluster rehashing of a tired tale way too obsessed with ragging on its poor protagonist.

Jade Budowski is a freelance writer with a knack for ruining punchlines, hogging the mic at karaoke, and thirst-tweeting. Follow her on Twitter: @jadebudowski.

Stream Confessions of an Invisible Girl on Netflix