Sensational Pariah a Journey of Heartbreak and Hope
The first word I muttered under my breath after watching writer/director Dee Rees’ Pariah, an expansion of her award-winning short film of the same name, was, “Wow.” As I sat in the darkened theatre letting the end credits crawl by I was thunderstruck by just how magnificent the film proved to be. This shouldn’t have happened, I kept thinking to myself, the central story too familiar, too cliché at this point. And yet there I was, flabbergasted to the point of awe, Rees achieving the unthinkable in many respects delivering a motion picture in many regards equal to many of the greats I’d seen throughout all of 2011.
Adepero Oduye in Pariah © Focus Features
Why was I surprised? Well, for one thing teenage coming out stories aren’t exactly new at this stage in the game. There have been plenty of them, some of the great, many of them solid and more than a fair share so reveling in cliché, stereotypes and platitude watching another one was admittedly not especially high on my personal to-do list. This just didn’t seem like the kind of picture I was going to be interested in, part of me even considering not attending the Seattle press screening because my darn preconceptions of the subject matter kept getting in the way.
Good thing I didn’t let that stop me. Right away, from the very first scene, I could tell Rees was going to deliver something, while still familiar, refreshingly worthwhile. The opening moments pulsated with energy, dripped in authenticity, and right then I knew I was completely hooked, energized and eager to see where this all was heading and what the director had up her sleeve as to how she would choose to show the journey to me.
Whose journey? Alike’s (Adepero Oduye), a 17-year-old living in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood with her smothering mother Audrey (Kim Wayans), doting NYPD detective father Arthur (Charles Parnell) and younger mouthy younger sister Sharonda (Sahra Mellesse). A solid student with a gift for poetry, she’s also come to the realization she’s a lesbian, a fact she knows her prim and proper mom will not be happy with.
Like I’ve already said, it isn’t like this story is all that original. I could tell what was going to happen and where we were going to go almost immediately. I knew there would be conflicts between Alike and Laura (Pernell Walker), an out lesbian trying to look out for her still closeted best friend, and it’s apparent right from the start mother and daughter are going to have a bit of trouble seeing eye-to-eye.
Be that as it may, Pariah knocked my socks off and then some. The genuine honesty of the piece, they way it dives right into the very heart of its characters, not just Alike but Laura, Sharonda, Arthur and Audrey as well, the way it deftly showcases how the experience of growing up is both universal and unique, all of it borders on the astonishing. So many of the subplots almost felt deserving of their own film while at the same time Rees never loses focus of the central thread tying it all together. It’s a fascinating drama, a dark, sometimes tragic journey that breathlessly understands the hope honesty with one’s self can oftentimes bring.
The majority of the performances are superb, especially young Oduye’s (who also starred in the short). There is an authenticity to everyone’s work that gives the picture a documentary-like quality that’s stunning. At times this felt more like a PBS showcase of some sort than an independently produced feature film, and there were moments that the insights Rees and her talented cast of newcomers were delivering figuratively brought me to my knees. One sequence in particular, a moment were Alike has her heart broken by a fellow teen she thought shared her best interests, spoke volumes, the tears I shed so honestly earned I wanted to revel in each and every one of them.
There is an exception, and I almost feel bad pointing it out, but Wayans doesn’t quite attain the same level of lived-in believability as the rest of the cast. She’s the only one I felt was acting, the only one who seemed to want to play up the melodramatic aspects of her character and her relationships with her husband and daughter. It isn’t that she’s bad, of course, it’s that she’s the one who most feels like a cast member of a CW drama, and when compared next to the performances delivered by her costars it’s impossible not to take note of it.
Still, Pariah is all kinds of awesome. Rees shows moxie and skill as a filmmaker, and fierce independent streak that allows her to take material as overly familiar as this and make it feel almost as if it were brand new and entirely original. Alike’s journey is a harrowing one, filled with victories and setbacks, heartbreak and heroism, forgiveness and despair. Most of all, however, there is hope and there is love, and no matter how dark the night the light streaming from the horizon at dawn can warm the cockles of even the most miserly heart.
Film Rating: êêê1/2 (out of 4)
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