''Pariah'' is a 2011 American

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

written and directed by

Dee Rees Diandrea Rees (born February 7, 1977) is an American screenwriter and director. She is known for her feature films ''Pariah (2011 film), Pariah'' (2011), ''Bessie (film), Bessie'' (2015), ''Mudbound (film), Mudbound'' (2017), and ''The Last Thing ...

. It tells the story of Alike ( Adepero Oduye), a 17-year-old Black teenager embracing her identity as a

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

. It premiered at the

2011 Sundance Film Festival The 27th annual Sundance Film Festival took place from January 20, 2011 until January 30, 2011 in Park City, Utah, with screenings in Salt Lake City, Utah, Ogden, Utah, and Sundance, Utah. The festival opened with five screenings, one from each ...

and was awarded the Excellence in Cinematography Award. It has since been considered to be one of the

best films This is a list of films voted the best in national and international surveys of critics and the public. Some surveys focus on all films, while others focus on a particular genre or country. Voting systems differ, and some surveys suffer fro ...

of the 2010s and of the 21st century. In 2022, the film was selected for preservation in the United States

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation (library and archival science), preservation, each selected for its cultural, historical, and aestheti ...

by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant", making it the first narrative feature from the 2010s chosen for induction by the registry.

Plot

Alike ("Lee") is a seventeen-year-old Black girl who hangs out at clubs with her openly lesbian friend Laura. Alike slowly and firmly comes to terms with her own identity as a butch lesbian, comfortable in baggy clothes and male underwear. Her Christian mother Audrey approves of neither Alike's clothes nor her friendship with Laura. Harboring growing suspicions about Alike's sexuality, Audrey forces her to wear feminine clothing and tries to stem any influence from Laura by pushing Alike to instead make friends with Bina, a girl from her church. Alike has a better relationship with her father Arthur, who is a police detective. Alike begins to develop feelings for Bina, and starts spending more time with her than with Laura, much to Laura's annoyance. Arthur comes back late a few times from work, which angers Audrey and the two of them fight often. Arthur does not think much about the changes in Alike's life. Saying she is going through a phase, he is supportive of her, although he cautions her on steering clear of the area where there is a lesbian bar, saying it's not safe. One night after going to see an alternative rock band, Alike and Bina are alone in Bina's room when Bina begins caressing and kissing Alike. Alike is at first hesitant, having had no prior experience with physical intimacy. However, she eventually responds and the two spend the night together. In the morning, Alike talks to Bina about where they want their relationship to go, but Bina says there is no relationship, as she is not "really gay-gay" and only regarded their physical encounter as playful indulgence. Her only further interest in Alike seems to be her concern that Alike not tell anyone else about the two of them. Hurt and upset, Alike leaves and returns home and cries for hours. During that time, Audrey and Arthur have an explosive fight about Alike. Despite her sister Sharonda's protests, Alike decides to intervene in the fight and she comes out to her parents. Disgusted, Audrey viciously attacks Alike while Arthur tries to restrain her. Alike flees to Laura's house where the two friends reconcile. Audrey then tries to forget that anything happened, which annoys the rest of her family. Arthur comes to meet with Alike, apologizes for Audrey's actions and requests that Alike come back home, offering half-hearted assurance that if she does, "things will be different." Alike says that she will not return home, but instead plans to move to

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

to begin college early. She assures her father that, "I'm not running; I'm choosing." Before leaving, Alike makes an attempt to reconcile with her mother as well. However, her mother refuses to accept her and offers only that she will be praying for Alike. Arthur, Sharonda and Laura see Alike off on her journey west and the film ends with Alike reading a poem she wrote; its theme echoes her words to her father that she is not running, but choosing.

Cast

* Adepero Oduye as Alike * Aasha Davis as Bina, Alike's love interest * Charles Parnell as Arthur, Alike's father * Kim Wayans as Audrey, Alike's mother * Pernell Walker as Laura, Alike's best friend * Sahra Mellesse as Sharonda, Alike's younger sister

Soundtrack

Production

The film is a feature-length expansion of writer/director Dee Rees’ award-winning 2007 short film ''Pariah''.

Spike Lee Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee (born March 20, 1957) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and author. His work has continually explored race relations, issues within the black community, the role of media in contemporary ...

was one of the executive producers. Filming took place in and around

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, predominantly in the Fort Greene neighborhood in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

Reception and legacy

''Pariah'' premiered at the

and was awarded the Excellence in Cinematography Award. The film was shown at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...

in September 2011. On

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

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, the film holds an approval rating of 95% based on 124 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Pulsing with authenticity and led by a stirring lead performance from Adepero Oduye, ''Pariah'' is a powerful coming out/coming-of-age film that signals the arrival of a fresh new talent in writer/director Dee Rees." On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film has a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

score of 79 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' film critic

A. O. Scott Anthony Oliver Scott (born July 10, 1966) is an American journalist and cultural critic, known for his film and literary criticism. After starting his career at ''The New York Review of Books'', '' Variety'', and ''Slate'', he began writing film ...

wrote that to watch Adepero Oduye play Alike "is to experience the thrill of discovery." Scott continued by saying that "Pariah has a point to make, and a point of view to argue, but it also, above all, wants to illuminate an individual universe of meaning and emotion."

AutoStraddle Autostraddle is a queer and trans-owned online magazine and social network for lesbian, bisexual, and queer women ( cis and trans), as well as non-binary people and trans people of all genders. The website is a "politically progressive queer fem ...

placed the movie third on its list of the top 200 lesbian, queer and bisexual movies of all time. The film held a special screening at the

2024 Sundance Film Festival The 2024 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 18 to 28, 2024. The first lineup of competition films was announced on December 6, 2023. Among the highlighted events included the premiere of a documentary about the 1980s rock band Dev ...

on January 26, 2024 to commemorate the festival's 40th anniversary. On the announcement, Rees remarked "I'm moved and excited to be coming back to where it all began and celebrating this special anniversary with the Institute ... From the lab advisors, to the fellows, to the audiences, Sundance was that magically supportive and generous community that enabled Pariah to be born in the world and it’s always a joyous, heady feeling to return."

Accolades

African-American Film Critics Association The African-American Film Critics Association (AAFCA) is the world's largest group of Black film critics that gives various annual awards for excellence in film and television. It was founded in 2003 in New York City. In 2023 ''Variety'' stat ...

** Best Picture (runner-up) ** Best Independent Film (Winner) ** Best Breakthrough Performance, (Adepero Oduye) (Winner) * Black Reel Awards ** Best Picture (Nominated) ** Best Director: Dee Rees, (Nominated) ** Best Actress: Adepero Oduye, (Nominated) ** Best Screenplay: Dee Rees, (Nominated) ** Best Supporting Actress: *** Kim Wayans, (Nominated) *** Pernell Walker, (Nominated) ** Best Ensemble, (Nominated) ** Best Breakthrough Performance: *** Kim Wayans, (Nominated) *** Adepero Oduye, (Winner) * Black Film Critics Circle ** Best Picture (runner-up) ** Best Director: (Dee Rees), Winner ** Best Original Screenplay: (Dee Rees), Winner ** Best Independent Film, Winner ** Best Breakthrough Performance: (Adepero Oduye), Winner *

Independent Spirit Awards The Independent Spirit Awards, originally known as the FINDIE or Friends of Independents Awards, and later as the Film Independent Spirit Awards, are awards presented annually in Santa Monica, California, to independent filmmakers. Founded in ...

** Best Female Lead, Adepero Oduye (Nominated) ** John Cassavetes Award (Winner) *

44th NAACP Image Awards The 44th NAACP Image Awards ceremony, presented by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), honored the best in film, television, recording, and literature of 2012. The ceremony took place on February 1, 2013, at ...

** Outstanding Independent Motion Picture (Winner) ** Outstanding Motion Picture (Nominated) ** Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture: *** Adepero Oduye - "Pariah" (Nominated) ** Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture: *** Charles Parnell - "Pariah" (Nominated) ** Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture: *** Kim Wayans - "Pariah" (Nominated)

References

External links

* *
''Pariah: Song of the Self''
an essay by Cassie da Costa at the

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of arthouse film distributo ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pariah (2011 film) 2011 LGBTQ-related films 2011 directorial debut films 2011 independent films 2010s American films 2010s coming-of-age drama films 2010s English-language films American coming-of-age drama films American teen LGBTQ-related films African-American films African-American LGBTQ-related films Lesbian-related films LGBTQ-related coming-of-age drama films 2010s LGBTQ-related drama films Films about juvenile sexuality Films set in Brooklyn Films shot in New York City Films directed by Dee Rees Films about mother–daughter relationships Films about father–daughter relationships Films about anti-LGBTQ sentiment Features based on short films John Cassavetes Award winners Sundance Film Festival award–winning films United States National Film Registry films English-language independent films