You'll forgive me if my reaction to Dee Rees' film Pariah is more emotional than critical. Ya see, it really hits me close. No, not because I'm an African-American or a lesbianor had parents who would not accept me, but because my coming of age coincided with the boom years of the American independent film scene of the early 1990s. Pariah is, at least to me, greatly reminiscent of that era and its films.
Dad ain't exactly helping matters. A seemingly warm man, he's a cop that works nights – great cover to sneak around with other women. When he is home, he appears to be an agent of peace, but it may just be that he's given up on the family and just wants some peace and quiet.
That's not going to happen with two teenage daughters under even the best of circumstances, particularly with a mother determined to deny the development of her older child.
Ironically it is her mother's insistence on spending time with a nice girl from church that offers a first glimpse at romance, with all the breathlessness and heartache that usually comes along with it.
Pariah bounds along with youthful energy, but its script and scene-work are quite precise. Visually, it does what it can with its low-budget, but those looking for corners cut may find them. To give this positive spin, it's more nostalgia for those great indies of the early 90s.
We adults in the audience know that “it gets better,” but that doesn't mean a damn thing to Alike, forced to sneak her more masculine change of clothes into bathrooms so she won't “get caught” dressing the way she wants to dress.
There simply isn't enough praise in the world for Adepero Oduye, the young woman who plays Alike. She makes the frustrations of her specific situation instantly relatable. One more than one occasion I wanted to pull a reverse-Purple Rose of Cairo and enter the film to give her a hug.
The other remarkable performance is by Charles Parnell as the worldly and ultimately sympathetic father. We watch him push his self-denial just one more day, needing it like a drug. He knows that she knows and we know too and wouldn't it be just easier if someone had the guts to say something? But life doesn't work that way.
Pariah isn't a masterpiece (oy, so many poetry readings ) but it doesn't have to be. It is slice-of-life cinema from what many would consider a foreign place. When they see the film, they'll recognize just how universal it is.
