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Pariah

Pariah

Drama · 2011

A Brooklyn teenager juggles conflicting identities and risks friendship, heartbreak, and family in a desperate search for sexual expression.

Movie details

Pariah

“Who do you become when you can't be yourself?”

2011 Drama 1h 26m

Critical arithmetic

One number, for now.

TMDB

6.9 / 10

Community rating

A Brooklyn teenager juggles conflicting identities and risks friendship, heartbreak, and family in a desperate search for sexual expression.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Pariah?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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The Silent Twins

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June and Jennifer Gibbons are twins from the only Black family in a small town in Wales in the 1970s and '80s. Feeling isolated from the community, the pair turn inward and reject communication with everyone but each other, retreating into their own fantasy world of inspiration and adolescent desires. After a spree of vandalism, the girls are sentenced to Broadmoor, an infamous psychiatric hospital, where they face the choice to separate and survive or die together.

Mammal

Mammal

Drama · 2016

After Margaret, a divorcée living in Dublin, loses her teenage son, she develops an unorthodox relationship with Joe, a homeless youth. Their tentative trust is threatened by his involvement with a violent gang and the escalation of her ex-husband's grieving rage.

The Doors

The Doors

Music · 1991

The story of the famous and influential 1960s rock band and its lead singer and composer, Jim Morrison.

Pimp

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An urban love story set on the hard streets of the Bronx. A struggling female pimp, named Wednesday, grows up learning the game from her dad. Once he's gone she's left to look out for her prostitute mother and girlfriend Nikki.

Requiem for a Dream

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To Write Love on Her Arms

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Drama · 2015

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Enter the Void

Enter the Void

Fantasy · 2010

This psychedelic tour of life after death is seen entirely from the point of view of Oscar, a young American drug dealer and addict living in Tokyo with his prostitute sister, Linda. When Oscar is killed by police during a bust gone bad, his spirit journeys from the past -- where he sees his parents before their deaths -- to the present -- where he witnesses his own autopsy -- and then to the future, where he looks out for his sister from beyond the grave.

Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Dee Rees

Written by

Dee Rees

Adepero Oduye

Adepero Oduye

Alike

Pernell Walker

Pernell Walker

Laura

Aasha Davis

Aasha Davis

Bina

Charles Parnell

Charles Parnell

Arthur

Sahra Mellesse

Sahra Mellesse

Sharonda

Kim Wayans

Kim Wayans

Audrey

Shamika Cotton

Shamika Cotton

Candace

Court is in session

Put Pariah on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Prestige Tourist

“Ambition earns the room.”

The film reaches for consequence and scale, accepting the risk of seriousness instead of shrinking from it.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“Importance has entered the chat.”

The production keeps announcing its significance, as though awards-season posture were proof of insight.