Director Anna Rose Holmer does go by any expected conventions in The Fits, her unique film debut that stood out amongst the many films screened this year at New Directors/New Films.
We follow 11-year-old tomboy Toni (Royalty Hightower), who trains hard at her local gym in Cincinatti with her older brother Jermaine (Da’Sean Minor), throwing jabs in the ring, doing sit-ups and pull-ups. She is far more mature for her age than any 11-year-old should be, and a tougher girl than most boys of her age.
One day she catches a glimpse of a local dance team full of young girls her age known as The Lionesses (played by a real life dance team called the Q-Kids). These girls are everything that the Toni who works out at the gym isn’t, feminine in every way of the word. It takes some time for her to get up to speed and acclimated to the group of girls and their routines, but soon she fits right in, making a best friend named Beezy (Alexis Neblett) along the way.
Just as she becomes a part of the crew, strange things keep happening. Slowly each of the girls start to become sit, with their bodies raised and subject to seizure like “fits.” One by one they start becoming a victim of this strange ailment. The community becomes alarmed as to what is causing this, but no one can find a solution, as one by one, it spreads to each girl in passing.
These “fits” are filmed beautifully, casting a visual spell on the senses that features a lot of fresh-faced visual imagination from the bright mind of Holmer, who clearly is one to watch in the future, along with her young star, Royalty Hightower who is a revelation.
Holmer, who co-wrote the script along with Saela Davis and Lisa Kjerulff doesn’t spoon-feed us the cause and it’s never explained. It’s left to us to decide if these fits stand for a rite of passage into womanhood or something a bit more supernatural, but some mysterious are better left untold, and in the case of The Fits, it’s mystery is part of its undeniable charm.
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