Ah Girl

Toronto International Film Festival: Ah Girl ✂️ 泡泡糖女孩 (2026)

Who would’ve thought that one of, if not the best performances of the year, would come from a nine-year-old kid? Yet here I am, having just finished AH GIRL, the Singaporean coming-of-age drama that somehow pulled that exact feat off.

Nine year old, Ong Xuan Jing delivers a shockingly raw, intensely emotional, hyper-realistic performance as a young girl trying to navigate her parents’ separation, get the attention of her crush at school, and be an older sister to a sibling who is still young enough to innocently turn a blind eye to the adults in their lives who continue to treat them like an afterthought.

The film just had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, directed by first-time feature filmmaker Ang Geck Geck Priscilla.

Drawing from her own personal experiences, Ang crafts a memoir-esque portrait of the observant nature of children who, as she puts it, “understand far more than adults realize.”

As a child of divorce myself (luckily with a much more caring mother) this movie speaks volumes about what it’s like to be caught in the crosshairs of adults going through an ugly separation.

At first, AH GIRL feels loose, carefree, almost deceptively light. But once you get to know AH GIRL, that feeling of childlike wonder is slowly distorted by the reality of having to expedite her own maturation because of what the adults around her are exposing them too.

That’s my way of saying I wasn’t completely invested right off the bat. Initially, I found myself thinking I was watching another familiar family-breakup drama. Yet the longer AH GIRL spends with this child, the more that initial aloofness becomes part of the point. Because you have to see her happy first, you have to see her being a kid, you have to see that innocence before you can truly feel the weight of what she’s losing. And once that emotional rollercoaster begins, the movie becomes heartbreaking. Her journey is saddening not because it feels melodramatic, but because it feels so painfully real.

Life doesn’t always happen in a neat ebb and flow. Sometimes everything changes abruptly, and you’re just expected to figure it out. For AH GIRL, the people she’s supposed to look up to are adults who desperately need role models themselves. Unfortunately that’s all she knows, so she watches, she absorbs, and eventually, she imitates. Watching her take what she sees at home, what has become normalized to her, and bring it into her own social interactions at school becomes an eye-opening example of what it means to be a product of your environment.

Even the way she begins change to become the version of herself that is useful, desirable, or noticeable to the people around her speaks volumes

She starts performing a version of herself that goes against who she actually is, because she’s learning that this is how you get attention, affection, or validation. And that might be the saddest part of all.

None of that works without Ong Xuan Jing.

Her performance is extraordinary. She makes it feel like you’re watching someone’s memory play out on screen—a home video from a childhood you were never supposed to see. There’s something almost voyeuristic about it, like you’ve stumbled into someone’s most painful formative memories and have no business being there. She doesn’t feel like a child actor performing sadness, she feels like a child experiencing it, and she’s only nine years old.

With whatever little clout I have, when award-season voting comes around, I will absolutely be pushing for her to receive some sort of consideration. Because if there is any justice, people need to be talking about this performance.

And then there’s Sydney Wong, who plays her sibling and is presumably even younger than her, and somehow also knocks it out of the park. Getting one child actor to deliver a performance of this calibre is impressive. Getting two is something else entirely. There’s an authenticity to both performances that you simply can’t manufacture. Their interactions don’t feel like scenes between actors. They feel like memories between siblings. 

If you’re currently going through a divorce or separation and have children, I’d highly recommend giving this a watch. And if you were a child of a messy divorce yourself, I have a feeling AH GIRL will be a trip down memory lane. Because this movie understands something that adults often forget: Children are watching. They may not have the vocabulary to articulate what’s happening, they may not understand the full scope of it—but they’re watching, absorbing, learning, and eventually carrying those experiences with them.

AH GIRL is an honest, deeply affecting portrait of childhood through the watchful, untrained but constantly learning eyes of a kid who is becoming a byproduct of a broken home—and it’s carried by what I genuinely believe to be the best performance of the year. 

Enjoy!

7.9/10 🍿 🎥

Runtime: 1hr39mins

Where: North American Premiere at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival

The Richmond Reviewer Ah Girl Review - September 13th, 2026.