Part of Teenage Wasteland
Directed by native Nashvillian Dee Rees, PARIAH fills a deep void in cinematic stories about young, queer Black love. Teenage Alike (Adepero Oduye) lives in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood with her parents (Charles Parnell, Kim Wayans) and younger sister (Sahra Mellesse). A lesbian, Alike quietly embraces her identity and is looking for her first lover, but she wonders how much she can truly confide in her family — especially with her parents’ marriage already strained. When Alike’s mother presses her to befriend a colleague’s daughter (Aasha Davis), Alike finds the gal to be a pleasant companion.
“A tender, sporadically goofy, yet candid examination of emergent identity, a film whose lack of attitude sets it apart from much of the hard-bitten, thug-life storytelling that's dominated African-American cinema for decades…. The finest coming-of-age movie I've seen in years.” —Ella Taylor, NPR (Dec 29, 2011) “Striding in with hard-won confidence to depict a culture hidden from outsiders, Rees has made a movie of exceptional, raw honesty. There’s no mincing of words, deeds, or feelings among these believable young women.” —Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly (Jan 22, 2011) “This invigoratingly fresh, optimistic film — which features the breathtaking debuts of director Dee Rees and leading lady Adepero Oduye — plunges the audience into a world that's both tough and tender, vivid and grim, drenched in poetry and music and pain and discovery.” —Ann Hornaday, Washington Post (Jan 6, 2012)
