Pariah (***1/4)

As far I I knew, no one in my high school was gay. Nor did I suspect that anyone was.  This began to change ever-more rapidly in the last 20 years, so that someone can be out to friends, ambiguous to classmates, and closeted to parents all at once. That’s more or less the case with Alike (Ah-LEE-Kay) (Adepero Oduye), the heroine of this semiautobiographical first feature from Dee Rees.

That Alike is a black, lesbian teen certainly provides the dramatic hook, but in form it’s a coming-of-age tale. If Alike is a pariah—though she frequents a local lesbian club with a best friend—it’s as much because she’s introspective and shy as because of her sexuality. Her unexpected first romance is of less note than the relationship with her parents.

The tiny silver lining of the pre-don’t ask, don’t tell era was that, if you didn’t tell—and if you were in high school you almost certainly wouldn’t—no one was likely to ask. But though Alike’s mother (comedy veteran Kim Wayans, surprisingly capable) frets about her daughter’s “tomboy” phase, and her dad asks about boys, it’s apparent that they both kind of know the truth. If it’s true that their level of denial would seem a bit behind the curve were they white,  professional Brooklynites rather than black, working-class ones, it’s also true that this story has played out thousands of times among all sorts of Americans. But this is the first time I’ve seen it on film, and Rees tells it with authenticity.

IMDb link

viewed 1/5/12 at Rave UPenn (PFS screening) and reviewed 1/12/12