Jack and I loved this moving coming-of-age story of a black 15 year old lesbian in Brooklyn, the feature debut of director/writer Dee Rees, whose 2007 short film of the same name and topic won six festival awards. Adepero Oduye stars as Alike (a-LEE-kay) who is trying to reconcile a home life with a beloved but clueless father, a bratty sister, and a controlling, frankly horrible mother with her nascent sexuality and her openly gay best friend. Oduye, Pernell Walker, and Sahra Mellesse transitioned from the short film to the feature as Alike, the friend Laura, and the sister Sharonda, while Charles Parnell and Kim Wayans (best known as sister to Damon, Keenen Ivory, Marlon, and all those other Wayanses) step in as the parents this time around.
The music is important, as so many teenagers love their personal soundtracks, and this movie has no composer, just songs. We counted 24 tunes in the credits, but no comprehensive list is apparently online, other than the 11 songs included on the soundtrack (for sale here, and a compilation available here).
The whole package is first rate: writing, directing, acting, cinematography (nominations listed here). We highly recommend it, with one caveat: those susceptible to Motion Picture Motion Sickness (see my running list of MPMS warnings) should sit as far back as possible, due to a lot of handheld camera work.
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