Pariah
2011 · Directed by Dee Rees
Original language: English
- drama
The story
A Brooklyn teenager juggles conflicting identities and risks friendship, heartbreak, and family in a desperate search for sexual expression.
What it’s like
Close, handheld camera that stays tight on faces in cramped apartments, bedrooms and late-night bus rides, with much of the look in warm lamplight, dim kitchen fluorescents and the cool blue-grey of Brooklyn streets before dawn. Its palette shifts from muted domestic browns to saturated club colour when Alike ventures out, and the grain and naturalistic textures make every room feel lived in and slightly claustrophobic. The sound is mostly diegetic: traffic, sharp family arguments, murmured phone calls, with music used sparingly and at pivotal moments. Pacing is patient and observational, with long silences that let discomfort sit, and the emotional register is raw but tender, a coming-of-age study of a young woman trying to name herself while hiding parts of her life from the people she loves. Its intensity is emotional rather than physical: there is no graphic violence, but there are tense confrontations, parental anger, and frank sexual content between teenagers and adults-in-training, handled with candour rather than titillation. It suits a late-night, alone-with-the-screen sitting or a thoughtful weekend watch, and it is made for viewers who want an intimate, character-driven drama about identity, family and first love.
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