What to know
- Pitch Perfect Rebel Wilson triples as writer, star, and director in a girl group film.
- The film explores the ups and downs of girl group fame, from sisterhood to scandal.
- Themes of body image and industry pressure run throughout, tackled with humour and heart.
- Expect a mix of cringey jokes, catchy songs, and a message about growth and second chances.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ / ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
This review contains spoilers for the film Girl Group.
You’re about to get “pitch-slapped,” because Pitch Perfect’s “Fat Amy” just wrote, starred and directed another girl group movie: Girl Group.
Unfortunately, there’s no Pitch Perfect 4, but Rebel Wilson, who iconically played “Fat Amy,” decided to make her own girl group movie, which held its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), and it doesn’t disappoint
The movie opens with what could be a great high school girl group: girls filled with laughter, passion, sisterhood, and sparkle as they perform on stage.
What happened next made everyone giggle with excitement: they were scouted. Soon after, the girl group, Gurlfriends, became a musical sensation.
From iconic music videos to performing on giant stages, Gurlfriends did it all, until one performance went wrong.
Fast forward to 2006, Wilson, starring as Tassie Young, threw up on stage due to her alcoholism.
Then, her life was party after party, drink after drink, and a wanna-be solo career.
But in 2026, Gurlfriends decided to go on a reunion tour — without Tassie. In fact, they replaced her with a total narcissist, and still thought she was better.
There, the girls had a confrontation, and one of them even told Tassie she didn’t even call when she had given birth; the girls were fightingggg.
In that moment, I was heartbroken for the group, feeling they didn’t have that sisterhood anymore. The girls didn’t support Tassie in her problems, while Tassie didn’t even check up on any of them.
On top of that, Tassie’s publicist, Gabriella (played by Jennifer Coolidge), told her to eat some type of bar that’ll make her lose weight, and focus on her solo career.
After this Gurlfriends news and body-shaming treatment, Tassie went for drinks and, drunk, got into the driver’s seat of someone else’s car, reversed into another car, and got stopped by police for drunk driving. That might’ve been her best wake-up call.
Waking up in a jail cell, she was bailed out by her publicist and told she had to do community service.
That’s when she met Ken, played by Randall Park. Like his other roles as Louis in Fresh Off the Boat, he was such a sweetie.
The two also went out for a beverage, and I was soooo shipping them.
Ken always saw potential in the girls, “star quality,” he said in the movie.
I didn’t even see the film yet, and I asked Randall Park on the red carpet: What makes someone a star? What great foreshadowing.
@nowtoronto For the “Girl Group” premiere at #TIFF, actor Randall Park says everyone’s a star ✨🌟#RandallPark #GirlGroup ♬ original sound – Now Toronto
With the girls, Tassie was still very self-involved until she saw the protégé girl group go on stage and realized the mess she had to deal with.
That’s when she got serious, finished all her community hours, and wanted to keep volunteering to help the girls build enough talent to pass a competition that would get them signed to a major label.
What I loved to see was Tassie’s character development.
From someone who only cared about herself and drinking, to caring enough to keep mentoring these girls for free.
Still, her heart was there, but she wasn’t properly listening to the girls yet.
Tassie saw Jess, the sister of one of the girls in the youth group, perform in a rival girl group: the Cream Team, and saw how sexy they were dancing.
Yet the youth girl group didn’t want to over-sexualize themselves just to be a girl group, but Tassie was teaching the girls how she was formed in the industry: eat these thinning bars and sexualize yourselves.
On that note, we saw “Fat Amy” character come in, with fat and skinny jokes all around.
But who the girl group truly reminded me of were the Spice Girls. I mean, the entire 1990s pop peak with a later-coming reunion – especially without some of their members. Uhm – Gurlfriends without Tassie.
But Gurlfriends would absolutely not survive in today’s generation, especially not with all the fat and skinny jokes.
Though the youth girl group: Xplode, reminded me of a Gen Z too woke girl group. It’s good, of course, but it lowkey just gave me a cringe vibe.
Would Xplode survive today’s world? Kind of. I think they would be popular, but only because they’d be the next “Hype House” type of group, filled with drama.
Tangent aside, Tassie returned to the youth girl group and won them over with a song on the piano.
Tassie went against the competition’s rules, requiring a girl group song by certain groups such as The Pussycat Dolls, and instead wrote an original song for the girls.
On the day of the competition, Tassie got a phone call to leave the girls and join Gurlfriends for a show, as they couldn’t tolerate the narcissistic replacement group member.
But this moment showed growth: Tassie stayed. She proved she changed for the better and stuck by the girls.
Ultimately, the girls didn’t win, but Tassie returned to Gurlfriends post-competition and invited Xplode on stage.
I wish the movie had more of a love story between Tassie and Ken, and at times, it felt long. There were also lots of cringy jokes that seemed like they tried too hard to hit a Gen Zer, and take it from me — a Gen Zer — they didn’t all hit.
Overall, it was a nice feel-good movie with lots of girl group songs that made you want to sing along.
TIFF-goers can check out Girl Group for a final time at Scotiabank Theatre on Sept. 19 at 7:30 p.m., as no theatrical release date has been confirmed at the time of publication.
