Parents' Guide to

I Am All Girls

By John Sooja, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 16+

Intense human trafficking thriller has sexual violence.

Movie NR 2021 107 minutes
I Am All Girls Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

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age 5+

Based on 1 parent review

CowGirlDiva
CowGirlDiva Adult
May 22, 2021
age 5+

To Protect Our Children.

Saw it on Netflix, I plan to have my 5yr old and 12 yr old watch it to show them what they are posting of themselves online could get them kidnapped and put for Trafficking or worse. yes children (Girls)are starting young now, several kids so called kid shows teach them to do selfies in many different ways, it sad but true. we need more shows like this to scare them away from doing selfies.

This title has:

Great messages
Great role models
See all 1 parent review

What's the Story?

In I AM ALL GIRLS, Jodie (Erica Wessels) is an investigator about to break open a decades-old human trafficking case. Meanwhile, a serial killer seems to be targeting pedophiles, leaving them all with different letters carved into their chests. Jodie's friend and colleague, Ntombi (Hlubi Mboya), also assists the case, but she has her own reasons for doing so.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: (1):
Kids say: Not yet rated

This South African thriller is good, but quite by-the-book, despite it working from factual source material. While the plot differs from what happened historically, I Am All Girls still has a strong and important message. What it lacks in actual information is replaced with a taut thriller that follows two strong and gay women leads working to stop human trafficking. But this movie is also a revenge thriller, as a vigilante steadily picks off villain after villain. While it often verges more into the stock trades of this kind of thriller (research montages, police procedural dialogue, shootouts, glory kills, chase scenes), the stakes and emotional weight of what everyone is fighting for remains solid. The brutality of trafficked kids is shown often (but not the sexual abuse directly), on their faces, in their tears, and in the adult faces of those around them, even if these adults are part of the system. Further, the fact that well over half a million women are trafficked each year and well over half of them are kids is crushingly tragic and hard to accept. Even worse, only 1% of these women and kids are ever recovered.

As far as representation goes, I Am All Girls features strong performances from its two stars, but many viewers might wonder why the film wasn't only about Ntombi or mainly about her and not the White woman investigator, Jodie?

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about human trafficking and sexual violence in film. Do you think I Am All Girls represents these accurately and considerately? Why or why not?

  • Do you think it's important to realistically show the brutality of human trafficking or only imply it? Why?

  • Discuss vigilantism in film. How did it feel rooting for main characters you knew were flawed? How do we justify their vigilante actions, even if those who end up harmed deserved it? How do superhero movies handle this, for example?

Movie Details

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