If the title of this emotionally honest and powerful drama seems familiar, it might be that some of you were able to see director Dee Rees' short film of the same name when it screened in 2008's BFI London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, winning the Iris prize. For her feature debut, Rees has expanded the story and deepened the character study, and the result is a distinctive, believable coming-out and coming-of-age story about a young African-American exploring her identity and figuring out what kind of woman she wants to be. Brought up in a close middle-class Brooklyn family, Alike (Adepero Oduye) is a straight-A student, a budding poet and an inexperienced lesbian. While Laura, her bolder and more worldly friend, tries to help her get a date, her overprotective parents react with denial and disgust at their daughter's emerging sexuality. Rees, who says Pariah is semi-autobiographical, brings humour and a fresh and youthful feel to Alike's story. Adepero Oduye's restrained central performance is sympathetic and entirely convincing, and Bradford Young's cinematography, which was deservedly given an award in Sundance this year, gives the film a vivid contemporary feel.

Sandra Hebron