ALSO SHOWING
Get Duked!
Formerly titled Boyz in the Wood, this Scottish teen movie, the first from Edinburgh- raised music promo director Ninian Doff, is an entertainingly outré coming- ofage film that veers confidently from gross- out humour to surreal horror before delivering some surprisingly pointed streets- vs- the- elites social commentary. Rian Gordon, Lewis Gribben, Viraj Juneja and Samuel Bottomley star as misfit teens who find themselves being hunted for sport by a tweedy aristocrat ( Eddie Izzard) while participating in the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme in the Highlands. The film sets the raucous tone early and uses its high school archetypes as a solid foundation for the freewheeling hi- jinks that follow as class politics, psychedelic rabbit poo and a couple of action- starved cops ( played by the hilariously deadpan Kate Dickie and Kevin Guthrie) collide. Yes, it’s frequently juvenile and won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it is also very funny in an unapologetically gonzo way and the young cast are very endearing.
Streaming on Amazon Prime
Yes, God, Yes
A very sheltered Catholic school girl’s sexual awakening in the early 2000s becomes the basis for this smart, funny, sly takedown of moral righteousness in Red State America. Writer/ director Karen Maine uses the period setting to good effect to score rueful laughs as her protagonist, Alice ( Natalia Dyer), furtively tries to enlighten herself about a sexual act she’s rumoured to have performed at a party. Never mind that Alice’s only sexual experimentation thus far amounts to rewinding her VHS copy of Titanic to repeatedly watch the mild love scene between Kate and Leo. Thanks to the sex miseducation they’re receiving from their teachers, she’s torn between her determination to explore her growing curiosity about sex and the craven lies that dogmatically insist everything she’s experiencing is a mortal sin. Maine
– who co- wrote the similarly spiky abortion- themed romcom Obvious Child – is great here at putting us in Alice’s headspace, especially as Alice is sent to a religious retreat where she quietly but forcefully rebels against the strictures designed to reinforce the moral purity of its attendees. Available to stream on digital platforms including itunes, Amazon and Googleplay
Ava
Teenage self- empowerment is one of the main theme in this semiautobiographical coming- of- age drama from Iranian director Sadaf Foroughi. It tracks school girl Ava ( Mahour Jabbari) as she pushes back against her mother ( Bahar Noohian), whose decision to drastically curtail her freedoms by limiting her access to boys and controlling who she sees and what she studies starts having a destructive effect on her mental health and her school and home life. Making clever use of shallow depth- of- field and intriguing framing devices to externalise Ava’s intensifying feelings of entrapment, Foroughi – yet another first timer – has made an auspicious and perceptive film about the very real barriers facing the young and the steely defiance required to transcend them.
Available to stream on digital platforms including itunes, Amazon and Googleplay
Chemical Hearts
Next to Ava, Yes, God, Yes and Get Duked!, this much more mainstream American teen movie can’t help but seem soppy and soporific. Revolving around a straight- A, straight- laced high school senior ( Austin Abrams) who finds his world gradually upended when he falls for the emotionally damaged new girl in school ( Lily Reinhart), the film’s angst- ridden earnestness and overwritten ( and overwrought) dialogue brings to mind 1990s teen soap Dawson’s Creek. ■
Streaming on Amazon Prime