Confessions of an Invisible Girl

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Short takes

Not suitable for children under 11 and parental guidance recommended for children aged 11 and 12 due to mature themes (dating, sexual orientation; bullying), and mild coarse language.

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Confessions of an Invisible Girl
  • a review of Confessions of an Invisible Girl completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 1 October 2021.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 11 Not suitable due to mature themes (dating, sexual orientation; bullying), mild coarse language, and lack of interest.
Children aged 11-13 Parental guidance recommended due to mature or triggering themes (dating, sexual orientation; bullying), and mild coarse language.
Children over the age of 13 Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Confessions of an Invisible Girl
Classification: PG
Consumer advice lines: Mild themes, mild coarse language, mild violence.
Length: 92 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Brazilian teen Tete (Klara Castanho) feels like an outcast: she is clumsy, sweats excessively when stressed (basically always), and, by Brazilian standards, has too much facial and body hair. It’s also not helping that her parents and grandparents relentlessly criticise and patronise her. At her new school in Rio de Janeiro, she quickly makes friends with openly gay boy Zeca (Stepan Nercessain) and “nerd” Davi (Gabriel Lima). Naturally, she falls for no less than ‘The’ popular boy Erick (Lucca Picon) but of course he is dating popular and mean girl Valentina (Júlia Gomez). That’s okay, because she also fancies Davi’s brother Dudu (Caio Cabral). Inevitably, a make-over, a big party, a scandal exposing the bully, and confusion about who is Mr. Right lead to a happy end.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Brazilian movie; Teen Movie; Coming-of-age; Comedy.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie, including:

  • During an argument, Valentina and Tete start to push each other, wrestle, and Valentina stomps on Tete’s glasses.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

  • Nothing of concern noted.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

  • Nothing of concern noted.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

  • Nothing of concern noted.

Thirteen and overinfo

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

  • Nothing of concern noted.

Product placement

  • None noted.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

  • Zeca introduces himself with “I’m gay”.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

  • Teenage boys and girls are seen in underwear and swimwear.
  • Teenagers exchange passionate kisses.
  • A girl is accused of “making out” with a boy in a bathroom.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • Teenagers drink alcohol at a party.
  • One girl is seen intoxicated and feeling nauseous from drinking.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • It pisses me off.
  • Shut up.
  • Crazy bitch.
  • idiot.

In a nutshell

Confessions of an Invisible Girl is a Brazilian teenage comedy which is entertaining partly because it is so off-beat. The English title is misleading because main character Tete is the opposite of invisible – she constantly draws attention to herself with clumsy and awkward behaviour. It’s no surprise that Tete is a bit weird, when her parents and grandparents are always giving her a hard time (for example, giving her the nickname “Pits of Death” in reference to her sweaty armpits, or bribing other kids to be friends with her because they don’t think she’s capable of making her own friends). This movie is both predictable, as Tete transforms from a nerdy outcast into a popular swan, and totally implausible. The out-of-sync American dubbing does not help, so if your kids are advanced readers it might be better to watch it in the original Brazilian Portuguese with subtitles. Mature or triggering themes like dating, sexual orientation, and bullying, and mild coarse language make it unsuitable for children under 11 and warrant parental guidance for children under 13.

The main messages from this movie are as confusing as the movie itself - Be yourself, but also do whatever it takes to fit in. Don’t worry about being a bully, because if you start crying and say sorry, everyone will forgive you and love you straight away. Understand where your bad behaviour stems from, but just use that as an excuse and continue anyway.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • kindness
  • honesty
  • admitting mistakes and apologising
  • friendship

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Bullying. Several characters in this movie are the victims of bullying and exclusion and it is hurtful and damaging.