The Girl with Nine Wigs (2013): Nine Versions of Her

Sophie is a student in her early twenties, newly enrolled and enjoying her life. Then persistent nausea sends her to a doctor, who finds a malignant tumour.

She decides the illness will not be allowed to run her life. She keeps going out, flirting and writing a daily blog through months of chemotherapy. When her hair starts coming out she shaves her head herself and acquires nine wigs. She names each one and treats it as a different version of herself: one for the club, one for the ward, one for her family.

On the ward she befriends a young boy also being treated, and an older patient, Chantal.

Spoilers below. This page says which of the two women in The Girl with Nine Wigs survives, and where the film chooses to leave its camera.

The film's own sales synopsis and the major listing sites say only "cancer". So a summary built from the marketing would honestly report it as unspecified.

The book is more specific. The Girl With Nine Wigs is Sophie van der Stap's memoir of being a 21-year-old student in Amsterdam in 2005, when she was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma. That is where any precise diagnosis attached to this story comes from — the book, not the screen.

Other labels have circulated. None of them has a source we could trace back to either the film or the memoir, so this page does not repeat them. If you see a diagnosis attached to this title, the useful question is whether it came from the book, the film, or somebody's inference.

The confusion around this story is a good illustration of something that trips people up constantly: cancers get described in two different ways at once, and the two get mixed together.

One way is by where the tumour sits. Chest wall. Lung. Abdomen. The other is by what kind of cell it started in. That second way is what separates a carcinoma from a sarcoma, a leukemia and a lymphoma. Both descriptions of the same tumour can be true at the same time, which is how one tumour ends up looking like two different diagnoses.

NCI describes rhabdomyosarcoma as a type of sarcoma, meaning a cancer of soft tissue such as muscle, of connective tissue such as tendon or cartilage, or of bone. It usually begins in the muscles attached to bones that help the body move, but NCI notes it can begin in many places. There are four main types, which NCI names as embryonal, alveolar, spindle cell or sclerosing, and pleomorphic.

Two practical points sit underneath that. NCI says biopsy samples should be checked by a pathologist experienced in diagnosing rhabdomyosarcoma, because treatment depends on which type it is. And it is rare: NCI's summary is written mainly for children, where it is the most common soft tissue sarcoma, and soft-tissue sarcomas as a group are far rarer than the cancers most people have heard of. Rarity is part of why Sophie's first move is to search the internet, and part of why what she found there frightened her.

The wigs are the film's best idea, and they are drawn from life. They work not as a cover-up but as a way of choosing which self to be in a given room. That is a real strategy for people whose appearance has become public property.

NCI's advice on the same subject is unromantic and genuinely useful. Some chemotherapy makes the hair on your head and elsewhere fall out. Radiation can cause it in the area being treated. NCI's practical notes include one piece of timing that people wish they had known: if you plan to buy a wig, get it while you still have hair, so the colour can be matched. Some people cut their hair short first to make the shedding easier to handle. Others shave it, and NCI suggests an electric shaver rather than a razor.

It also covers the scalp itself, which nobody warns you about. Use sunscreen or a hat outdoors. Keep your head warm. Lotion helps if the skin is itchy or tender.

And on regrowth: NCI says hair often comes back two to three months after chemotherapy ends, often very fine at first, and sometimes curlier, straighter or a different colour than before.

The last of NCI's headings is the one the film dramatises for two hours: talk about your feelings. Many people feel angry, depressed or embarrassed about losing their hair, and NCI suggests talking to others who have been through it. Sophie's nine wigs are that conversation, held with herself.

It would have been easy to make this a film about beating cancer by being fun. It is not.

Sophie recovers. Chantal, the older patient she befriends, does not. The film puts them in the same room on purpose, and it ends with the survivor at the deathbed. That is a deliberate rejection of the idea that attitude determines outcome, and it is rarer on screen than it should be.

The film's other honesty is that a young patient still wants sex, parties and flirtation, and it refuses to make her saintly about it. The ward is boring and depleting as much as it is frightening. Where it takes liberties is the body: Sophie stays photogenic and mobile, and the worst of the toxicity happens between scenes.

Cancer Explained is free to read, with no ads and nothing for sale. If the wig advice above reaches someone a week before they need it, that is exactly what this site is for. Support our work.

The Girl with Nine Wigs is a genuinely good film about identity under treatment. Take the wigs seriously and the diagnosis loosely: the film never gives one, and the specific name belongs to the memoir behind it. And notice where the camera is at the end.

• NCI — Childhood Rhabdomyosarcoma Treatment (PDQ®), Patient Version
• NCI — Hair Loss (Alopecia) and Cancer Treatment
• Publishers Weekly — review of The Girl With Nine Wigs by Sophie van der Stap

This page discusses The Girl with Nine Wigs for education. It is not medical advice, and nothing here is a judgement of anyone's real medical care. Spotted an error? Please email [email protected].