Pariah

It's a scene that plays out every day, in the United States and all over the world - homophobic parents can rob their children of the comfort and acceptance most take for granted, and that makes it hard for nearly every gay kid out there weighing up whether to come out, or at least when. It's something I never had to worry about, but although I'm sure my parents would have stuck by me if I were gay, I'm also sure they wouldn't have liked it - which I'm very sorry and sad to say. For seventeen-year-old Alike (Adepero Oduye), this is something that has been simmering - just an added factor to the tension quite common to a parental relationship strained by a young girl on the cusp of adulthood, and trying to assert her independence. Alike wears masculine clothes, and her best friend, Laura (Pernell Walker) is openly gay - something which pains Alike's mother, Audrey (Kim Wayans). Her father, Arthur (Charles Parnell), is a cop by profession, and more accepting of Alike - not that he seems any more amenable to her being a lesbian. When Laura encourages Alike to spend time with the daughter of a family friend, Bina (Aasha Davis), there's an unexpected romantic spark - not that this will make Alike's journey any easier to navigate.

We spend a lot of time in Pariah reading facial expressions - something aided by Bradford Young's sterling cinematography, with it's shallow depth of field narrowing our focus on each character and isolating them in many shots. It seemed to me an intensive exploration of everyone's emotional state with close up shots (note how at first many of the shots featuring Alike don't allow us much of a full-frontal view of her face - as we see others) slowly revealing more of Alike's features as she solidifies into the adult she's destined to be. Of course this means feeling a lot of the pain and anger Alike does, but Dee Rees also carefully allots time for us to gather the world of emotion regarding those surrounding her. We see that Arthur and Audrey's relationship is on the rocks, and how that contributes to the situation with Alike and her mother. We see how Alike's relationship with Bina leaves Laura out in the cold, and how much of a betrayal that feels like to what was a best friend. The other characters in the film are given enough emotional depth to make them feel like they have a life beyond the screen and what we're privileged to see, and that makes the film feel expansive and grounded at the same time.

You might be surprised to learn that Adepero Oduye was 33-years-old when she played Alike. What she does best is imbue her character with a real sense of not naivete, but uncertainty, doubt and confusion. There's an unforgettable sequence in the movie where, to advance her credentials as a serious player, Alike manages to procure a strap-on implement she's immediately uncomfortable with. She wears it on a date, her discomfort absolutely palpable - and though the whole episode speaks to a lack of experience and guidance, it's always her expressiveness and body language that tells us the most. Of course there's a great deal of pain, moments of pleasure and determined anger - a teenage swirl that I must imagine would have been difficult for a 33-year-old actor to summon. It's a performance worthy of note, and of course absolutely critical to the success of the movie. Kim Wayans and Charles Parnell are of course also very good in an ensemble that rises to an occasion worth celebrating. There's nowhere to hide in a film that hinges like it does on an emotional intensity that varies so much from scene to scene.

Dee Rees describes Pariah as being semi-autobiographical but I think it tells the story of many out there. Of course, there's a lot of angst and sadness surrounding Alike's struggle here, but I didn't feel like this was a sad film overall, mainly because of how our main character holds her head high throughout. She isn't belligerent or brattish at all, and is instead determined to hold her ground and be herself in the midst of being wronged by lesser people. There are also moments where I felt sympathy for Alike's mother - not because of her prejudice, but because of the results of it. There's a scene where she's bought her daughter feminine clothes, and her friend lets slip an opinion that causes Audrey's eyes to betray a deep well of sadness - a sense she was hanging onto something gone forever and see knew it. I like a film where we feel empathy for someone who is for all intents and purposes the "villain" - Audrey is losing her daughter and her husband, and while it's easy to dislike her when she violently lashes out or uses religion to evoke a sense of superiority, she's also a person to be pitied for being a truly lost soul.

It's worth mentioning the Alike is a poet - an aspiring poet in a sense, finding her voice. At first I wanted to transcribe the poem she writes and recites at the end of the film, but although not a spoiler per se it's part of the movie and should probably best be heard as part of the film - I really enjoyed the way it summed up and encapsulated who Alike was and what her journey represents. There aren't many films out there where one of the biggest highlights is recited poetry, and that's part of Pariah's uniqueness along with being evidence of just how well written the Dees Rees' screenplay is. For me personally, this was an introduction to Dees Rees and (a film I had not known about until now) Pariah, which was her debut feature (Dees Rees went on to be the first African-American women nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for her 2017 film Mudbound.) Another major blind spot, because to me Pariah seems like a pretty significant film from the 2010s. A much-needed departure from all of the horror that I've seen on the screen this year, and that I've seen in the news - restoring some of my belief in humanity.