The Fits - the world is unsettling and beautiful through a child's eyes

The Fits is a stunning and engrossing study of a young girl’s desire to belong. It tells the story of Toni, a young boxer, who trains with and helps out her brother at a local gym. Toni becomes intrigued by the dynamic and raucous girls’ dance troupe that trains at the centre. She joins the group just as an epidemic of unexplained fits affects one girl after the other, affecting the close knit dynamic of the group and making the unaffected Toni feel like an outsider all over again.

The Fits has all the ingredients to be an excellent film anyway, but it is truly elevated by a phenomenal performance from Royalty Hightower.  She perfectly captures Toni’s confused emotions, desire to belong and committed intensity but also beautifully portrays lightness and joy and imagination. It is not just a wonderfully nuanced performance but also a physical challenge which she meets superbly.

In the post-film Q&A, director Anna Rose Holmer explained that the film-makers had expected to cast an older girl than Hightower, who was around 9 years old at the time of filming. Not only is it near impossible to imagine anyone else in the role, but has the added benefit of allowing a curious child eye’s view into the film, a very different perspective to a teenager’s.

Hightower’s performance is surrounded by a poetically beautiful and deeply intriguing and mysterious film. The direction by Holmer is wonderfully assured, with the fits themselves shot stunningly and evocatively. The dancers and boxers amazing physical prowess is beautifully and viscerally captured. The pacing of the film adds to the otherworldliness.  The film deliberately gives no simple answers, instead we fully get Toni’s sense of mystery of the new world she has entered and it’s suddenly strange goings on.  The story takes place almost all in one location and much of it is seen from Toni’s perspective behind a door, through a window or otherwise slightly physically isolated. It is an incredibly effective way to create the contagious and oppressive atmosphere as the fits spread and to capture Toni’s emotional journey.

The Fits is a unique and beguiling film which suggests a very bright and brilliant future for both actress Hightower and director Holmer.