Sarah Flannery Murphy showed in her first two books her capacity to take a speculative premise and use it illuminate real world issues. In The Possessions, her protagonist had the capacity to channel the lives of the dead and Girl One revolved around a group of young women with extraordinary powers. In both cases, what…
Aftersun is a sensitive, heartfelt and naturalistic film by debut writer-director Charlotte Wells. This beautifully reflective piece concerns an 11-year-old girl, Sophie (Frankie Corio) and the last holiday she took with her father Calum (Paul Mescal) two decades earlier. They travel from Scotland to a fading resort in Turkey. They swim, sunbathe, play pool, go…
The deeply personal coming-of-age tale Armageddon Time is loosely based on director James Gray’s own childhood experiences. And while the film explores many themes that have been typical of his canon, this one builds a strong emotional response from the audience. Gray’s counterpart here is Paul Graf (newcomer Banks Repeta) an eleven-year-old who is just…
“Like” and “you know” – two of the most overused phrases in the English language. They irritate me; and the former is thrashed in the opening scene of Eighth Grade. I had a teenage daughter (now over that hump, thank goodness), so I know what overuse of language sounds like. In this case, they’re spoken…
Breath is a haunting and elegiac coming-of-age tale. Set on the wind-swept coast of Western Australia in the 70s, it centres on two 14-year old surf rats. Bruce Pike – aka Pikelet – (Samuel Coulter) and Ivan Loon – aka Loonie – (Ben Spence) are best friends. Pike is a good boy from a respectable…
Testosterone flows in Walking Out. This coming-of-age tale involves a father and his son in beautiful American wilderness in the middle of winter. Based on the short story of the same name by acclaimed naturalist David Quammen, Walking Out tracks 14-year-old David’s (Josh Wiggins) annual visit to rural Montana. He’s there to visit his brooding,…
I’m a big fan of Greta Gerwig. Along with the likes of Brit Marling and Natalie Portman, she’s part of the vanguard of women filmmakers who can literally do it all. As well as 40 acting credits, she has 10 writing credits under her belt. Now she makes her solo directorial debut with Lady Bird. This…
The comedies of the late John Hughes were the gilt edge standard for coming of age films in the 80s, but more recently the genre seems to have been given over to more raunchy fare full of crude humour, jokes about sex and genitalia. A dark comedy about adolescent angst, rebellion and the uncertainties of…
A melancholic coming-of-age drama, there is much to enjoy from 20th Century Women. The film is set in Santa Barbara in the summer of 1979. Dorothea Fields (Annette Bening – The Kids Are All Right) is a determined single mother in her mid-50s, raising her adolescent son, Jamie (newcomer Lucas Jade Zumann), at a time of cultural…
Energetic, powerful and haunting – such is Spring Awakening. This is a musical journey from adolescence to adulthood set in Germany in 1891. Teenagers struggle with the adversity of coming of age at a time when sexual education is deliberately ignored and adults appear to hold all the cards. The focus is on Wendla Bergmann (Jessie-Lou…
