Girls Can't Surf: Movie Review

Director: Christopher Nelius

The amiable documentary Girls Can't Surf aims to provide a deep look at what the surfing industry did in the 1980s and how years of systemic division and inherent sexism prevented women from rising to the top.

Unfortunately, what emerges is more of a surface-level oral history of the times.

It's nicely presented, from the use of talking heads of the top female surfing talent of the time to plenty of archive material. But there's little accountability in this tale of women being victimised throughout their careers - and little current day reaction to what's occurred, other than a few talking heads.

Girls Can't Surf does aim to be empowering, and the tales of the likes of Frieda Zamba, Wendy Botha, Jodie Cooper, Pam Burridge and Pauline Menczer triumphing in various forms is vaguely inspiring and empowering in some ways, and totally damning of the conditions of the 1980s surfing "workplace."

Few men emerge well from this, with comments over women never being able to compete in this or any other sport and saying they should be sponsored by perfume companies rather than surfing gear causing many a cringe to any audience.

But Nelius is less interested in dealing to these comments, preferring to condemn them from a distance, rather than address them overtly. One surfer mentions how anorexia pushed her to the edge, and the camera lingers before moving on - it's symptomatic of what Nelius is doing here, exploring issues solely at a surface level.

There's a catharsis of sorts when the pay parity issue is resolved, but given a background of women sniping against each other and rivalries unexplored but touched upon, the high of resolution is decidedly low and underwhelming in its conclusion.

Ultimately, Girls Can't Surf is presented well enough, but rather than go into deeper waters, it prefers to play in the shallows - whether that's enough to make you want to hang 10 with this is debatable enough, but there is a distinct feeling that there could have been more to explore in this story.