Geri
I say it so often but it’s always worth repeating – sometimes, you just watch a movie at exactly the right time, and this was one of those for me, hitting me on every emotional level. I wasn’t even sure if I’d count this documentary as a “real” movie and write anything about it, but for all the love, joy, energy, beauty and sorrow that is Geri Halliwell that it captures, I think perhaps it should at least have an IMDb page? (Seriously, I can’t find one – someone let me know if I’m being an idiot – it’s directed by Molly Dineen and no, it’s not VH1’s “Behind the Music”)
I just submitted an additions form for the title to the IMDb, we’ll see what happens. Update: Oh well – IMDb says it’s this but I’m pretty frickin’ sure it isn’t. I even sent this link along with the additions form, where, btw, omg, I just realised you can actually watch the whole movie online (didn’t have the latest flash last time I visited it, I’m guessing that’s why I didn’t see it). Update 2: The IMDb finally has acknowledged the movie’s existence lol
I’ve actually found myself wondering frequently over the past year what it is I love so much about Geri. I loved her last album and I felt downright hurt by her appearance in the abominable Fat Slags. But outside of watching Spiceworld: The Movie at the end of last year, I’ve barely even thought of her at all, aside from, as I said, why it was there was a time I used to love her so much. This documentary really captures that conflicted feeling – ‘cos for all the energy she is able to exude, it’s evident on almost every frame how lonely and sad and longing to be loved she is, how she’s able to ‘play’ confident and ‘play’ outgoing but she retreats so easily into herself at the drop of a hat. In short, I fell in love with her all over again and – I’m sure I’m not alone 
– by the end of the movie all I wanted to do was hug her (shut up, I’m being serious here – not to say she isn’t stunning to look at). That after-movie activity being unavailable to me, I might just stick some Spice Girls and Geri stuff on my iPod this weekend.
The last image is particularly haunting – shots of Geri sitting with a puppy on the stairs, or roller skating through the halls of her new, big, ridiculously spacious (considering she seems only to have a handful of friends and a small family) house are juxtaposed with shots of a Sindy doll dressed as Ginger Spice in a similar doll’s house … Geri herself points out that a dressing table she has in her bedroom is exactly like one she had in her doll’s house as a little girl. An earlier scene shows her in a big FAO Schwartz/ Hamley’s type toy store, where she explains her fascination for toys by the fact she never really had many. It’s like she’s recreating the dreams she had as a kid as if that’s what reality should be. It’s kinda creepy and odd, but also sad … but somewhere there seems to be hope too. Kinda leaves you not knowing what to think, I guess.