Adepero Oduye as Alike in Dee Rees' 'Pariah'
We have finally entered an era where you can expect queer cinema to be as nuanced and insightful as any other, and Dee Rees’ Pariah, which opens in Portland theaters Friday the 13th, is the perfect example of a coming of age story done so well that it has, well, come of age.
Pariah follows 17-year-old African American Brooklynite Alike (Adepero Oduye) who lives at home with her younger sister and fairly strict and religious parents Audrey and Arthur (Kim Wayans and Charles Parnell). She is a good student and a writer who is struggling not so much with her sexuality, but how to reveal it and fully engage with it. She wants a girlfriend but is frightened. She has a supportive friend but her mother pushes that friend away. And while she is a bright and sympathetic protagonist, what is most powerful about this film is not that she is a superhero but rather a very real vision of what it’s like to be a contemporary lesbian teenager.
Continue reading »
