The Next Coming of Age Movie you Should Watch! By Nam Woon Kim (he/him)
Growing pains: you either kick and scream your way through or take it one painful step at a time. Coming of age movies will always be a favourite of mine so I've put together a super objective chart to help you pick one out for your next movie night. Whether you woke up and chose violence or p a i n, I’ve got a coming of age movie for you to define the rest of your semester with.
Sing Street
2016 | Ireland | Ambition A coming of age story for those of us who couldn’t imagine life without music, Sing Street offers an earnest, feel-good time without romanticising its setting either. What makes this movie work is that music is much more than just a means of escapism for our ragtag band growing up in the oppressive climate of Ireland in the 1980s. The common thread between each of the narratives, from boy meets girl to getting along with your siblings, is brilliant chemistry and a genuine empathy for everyone on screen.
Violence
The Florida Project
Pariah
Being six years old is a time for pure chaos – take a page from Moonee’s book who wakes up every day and chooses violence. Set just outside Disneyland, The Florida Project chronicles the everyday life of people living on the margins. Sean Baker does justice to this world and Moonee’s coming of age experience by choosing to highlight the totality of living under precarity. Precarity is all Moonee knows and despite the innate tragedy of her situation, there’s an infectious zest for life that makes this movie special.
A decade of American coming of age movies later, Pariah may seem familiar but it holds its own amongst its contemporaries as an intimately told story about a queer, black woman written and directed by a queer, black woman. Alike is impossible not to root for as she gradually becomes more confident and refuses to compromise who she is. Dee Rees elevates the story by fleshing out Alike’s parents and taking an empathetic lens without condoning them either. Pariah is unapologetic in what it has to say and its message still holds power in 2021.
2017 | U.S.A. | Curiosity
20
2011 | U.S.A. | Desire
