Pariah

Pariah is a film of uncommon sensitivity from first-time director Dee Rees. It is a bracing movie, one barren of procedure and hysterics. It tackles the issue of teen sexuality with a functional, meaningful tone but it doesn’t preach or parade its stars around in service of a “cause.” Rees’ use of a documentary filmmaking style with lots of handheld work gives us the benefit of being a passive observer, allowing the characters to draw us in progressively.

Adepero Oduye is receiving quite a bit of awards buzz and rightly so. She disappears into the role and has us believing her every word, watching her every step with amazement. I haven’t seen an actress treat a character with such love and respect so far this year and truly hope to see more of this gifted performer.

Oduye is Alike (pronounced ah-LEE-kay), a 17-year-old girl living in Brooklyn. She is a lesbian and she is struggling to find a place where she feels comfortable, where she belongs. Her home is strict, with her mother Audrey (Kim Wayans) and father (Charles Parnell) providing a relatively stable but inconsistent upbringing. Her father seems to know about his daughter’s sexuality, but Alike’s mother is disgusted by what she sees as a “tomboy phase.”

Audrey attempts to do a number of things to potentially scare her daughter straight, including turning her on to a new friend (Aasha Davis) in hopes of getting Alike to adopt a more feminine lifestyle. This is, hopes mom, to offset the influence of Alike’s lesbian friend Laura (Pernell Walker). When surprising emotions rise to the surface involving the new friend, Alike’s world is turned upside down.

The sting of rejection and the astonishment of betrayal sit very much at the core of Pariah. As much as this movie could be solely about getting to the point where a lesbian is socially accepted in a world of Christianity and moral phobias, it’s not. It is about finding acceptance within a much more momentous framework: it is about Alike coming to terms with herself.

There’s little doubt the pain she feels at the disloyalty of friends and family members, of course, and this can’t be discounted. But Rees’ picture battles the urge to generate villains. Audrey, played immaculately by Wayans, undoubtedly loves her daughter, but her internal struggles stand in the way of ultimate approval. When confronted toward the end of the picture, mom’s only clear wish for her daughter is principally that she stay careful.

Oduye resists the inclination to play Alike as a resigned artifact. Because of the cunningly gentle screenplay, she is never stitched into dragging encounters with characters that require her to hawk the “accept me as I am” hymn so commonly found in these films. Oduye instead relies on glances and peripheral robustness to reveal what’s within; she speaks plainly and with sense beyond her years, but it’s her wounded regard after rejection and her reticence when seeking out a certain strapping something that really lets us inside.

Pariah is one of those films that will be feloniously snubbed by filmgoers, but it is among the best of 2011. Rees has created a piece of minimalism and splendour, presenting subtle and eloquent characters and introducing us to a story that is decidedly delicate and essentially optimistic. And the exquisite and extraordinary unearthing of Adepero Oduye will, if there’s any justice, be seriously reflected on come Oscar time.

Trailer: