During hormone-addled, perpetually sleep-deprived teen years, life events can be so downright confusing that they take years of therapy, or at least out loud remembrances, to rediscover and accept. Especially when adults condescend, govern, or simply refuse to explain themselves, consciously processing emotions can be a nigh-impossible task during teendom. But when filmmakers draw from these wells of teen angst, occasionally an audience is lucky enough to watch protagonists work through jumbles of emotion with an ideally cathartic outcome which everyone can join.
This week’s VOD picks do just that, mining some of the more confusing, questionable, and turbulent emotional rollercoasters of adolescence to produce a real release. Whether through documentary, short form fiction, or the revitalization of a classic teen feature, these projects barrel through the repression so often forced upon teens, and encourage audiences to sincerely experience the messiest of their emotions.
In “No Crying at the Dinner Table,” filmmaker Carol Nguyen gathers her own family around the table to break through years of childhood memories and intergenerational trauma.
With “The First Taste,” writer-director Chloe Xtina brings a group of Catholic school teens together to go through fearsome, magical realist transitions while preparing for their school play.
Finally, in a sparkling 20th anniversary restoration, Jamie Babbit’s “But I’m A Cheerleader” lets young women break through their monochrome molds to find the joy of accepting themselves for who they really are.
Here are Women and Hollywood’s VOD selections.
“No Crying at the Dinner Table” (Short Documentary) – Directed by Carol Nguyen
From behind the camera in a somber, earth-toned kitchen, Carol Nguyen asks her family if they’re comfortable listening to the individual interviews she’s been conducting with them. The answer is trepidatious — as if Nguyen’s mother, father, and sister know that what they’re about to hear will potentially rattle them — but they agree.
What follows is a quietly expressive, highly emotional unearthing of family secrets. Memories of lost relatives, feelings of abandonment, and hesitant confessions of heartbreak all come together for a mosaic of interwoven, but previously unspoken, grief. Nguyen intersperses interviews with living portraits, documenting her family in moments of peace and mundanity, which drive home how everything is always hiding just beneath the surface. Slowly, they all come to realize that the childhood secrets they’ve been hiding are worth telling, and worth processing together.
“No Crying at the Dinner Table” is vulnerable, revelatory in its authenticity, and as its selection at TIFF, SXSW, and Palm Springs Film Festival can attest, a worthwhile 15 minutes of your time.
You can watch “No Crying at the Dinner Table,” along with Nguyen’s other shorts, on Vimeo.
“The First Taste” (Short) – Written and Directed by Chloe Xtina
If there’s one action that can describe Chole Xtina’s “The First Taste,” it’s screaming. Lots and lots of guttural, wrenching, joyous, incomprehensible screaming. The kind of yell that just takes over your whole body, and lets everything loose. It doesn’t matter what the girls of the raucous short are yelling about — Jesus, a boy ruining their creations, their bodies — what matters is that they are expressing absolutely everything that they don’t necessarily have the words for.
Told in rapid snippets of Catholic high school girls preparing to launch the most important part of their lives thus far — the school play — the film trades off playing like a bubbly teen dramedy and a stupefying magical realist awakening. Expressionistically delightful and horrifying by turns, the film has no qualms about delving into the harm caused by patriarchal standards, and it lets its collective of protagonists feel terrible about all of it. Hopefully, this is only the beginning of Xtina’s punk, misandrist filmic lens.
You can watch the confusion, rage, and discovery of “The First Taste” on NoBudge.
“But I’m a Cheerleader: Director’s Cut” – Directed by Jamie Babbit
When it first premiered at TIFF in 1999, “But I’m a Cheerleader” had the distinction of presenting the dour subject of conversion “therapy” in a light never before seen: farcical, campy comedy. Painted in Barbie pinks, nursery blues, and garish lavenders, the tale of teens forced into a heterosexual training facility that somehow only made them more gay is a Susan Sontag essay brought to gleeful life. Despite everything thrown at them, the teens manage to somehow salvage what matters most, and in the film’s new 4K, director’s cut restoration, they do so against the backdrop of an unthinkable, but somehow even more distinct, color upgrade.
If you were already a fan of Megan (Natasha Lyonne) and Graham’s (Clea Duvall) sweet romance as two teens coming out and into their own, director Jamie Babbit’s new VOD option is a no-brainer. If you’ve yet to see it, its surf-pop soundtrack, compassionate embrace of blossoming identity and sexuality, and cheeky performances are sure to enchant. Megan’s courage in going against her family’s wishes and breaking out of her perfect cheerleader mold stands the test of time, and even today, with a myriad of queer women-forward films to choose from, “But I’m a Cheerleader” remains one to root for.
As a bonus, watching Clea Duvall in her queer icon-making role makes her recent lesbian holiday hit, “Happiest Season,” even more joyous.
The “But I’m A Cheerleader” director’s cut is now available on various VOD platforms.
