The Sisterhood of Night

In my opinion, there can never be enough movies made about the conflicting years of adolescence, a period where those cute and adorable children we intend to raise into perfect and responsible adults all of a sudden start rebelling, biting the very hands that feed them. They turn into strangers, who question everything, alienating the very adults who nurtured them, causing pain and misunderstandings that tragically often outlast this brief unsettling period in our lives. The strength of this movie is the exceptional visuals, great soundtrack, excellent casting and a script adapted to the "nowness" of media influence - altogether a great film by the new promising director, Caryn Waechter.

Absolute masterpiece of a movie. Films like this rarely come along. The ending of this film is up there among the best.

There are many young stars in the making here. This ensemble cast of teens captures the pains of growing up and being heard in a hostile environment known as young adulthood. It has elements of The Crucible, in that the town they live in is on a witch hunt to find the secret belonging to this group of young female outcasts. But the main driver of the story is the pain of growing up and how each of these girls deals with it and its consequences. Great visuals and a pulsing beat captivates you even further. I'm not a teenage girl but I could relate to the world Waechter created. The characters were not black and white. The antagonists had redeeming qualities. The protagonists had flaws. All in all there was complexity here. And there are probably elements in this story - alienation, understanding, prejudice, judgment - we can all relate to, no matter what age we are.

Just saw a film festival showing with the director and writer in attendance for a q&a. This is a difficult film to label, the trailer might suggest a 'mean girls as witches' storyline as in The Craft, but this is not a horror flick, there's no supernatural element. It's about female friendships and being true to oneself, there are familiar high school themes of peer pressure, popularity, a dash of cyber bullying, but thankfully none of these are pressed too hard, so it never devolves to a dreary message movie.

You could say the plot uses The Crucible as a rough template, but best to discover the specifics for yourself. The director has a great visual sense, and Georgie Henley is a real find as the lead character Mary Warren, she has a natural charisma and commands every scene she's in. Maybe there are one or two obligatory plot turns, but overall the narrative unfolds in surprising ways and lands with real emotional punch. The director said it will be available on video on demand in April 2015. Worth seeking out.

Generally well-made, well-filmed, strong performances across the board, and the story tells you enough to keep you interested until the very end. Yes the story is a bit histrionic in it's emotional thrust, but I would say it is very true to it's teenage age group in that regard, when in that age in life, small things appear to be the end of the world. For the most part, these girls come across as real people, and not caricatures as in so many other teenage films such as: Mean Girls, Easy A, and the majority of the 1980's and 1990's(I like all of these films as well fyi) teenage films where the teen villains are always generally painted as one sided. Here the "villains" are just normal people who are scared or jealous, and most of the time, don't actually want to cause real harm. It delves into #metoo territory before #metoo was really a thing, this was made in 2014. This movie was what I thought the disappointing and morally bankrupt "The Falling" would be.

There are a great deal of coming of age films, and this one stands out among them as not being afraid to show the ugly side, without reveling in it. So many teenage films either gloss over some of the struggles, or just outright glorify them. This film straddles that line, it shows both the highs and lows. It gives a picture of a group of girls who rise above the trivial and petty nature of teenage girls and find a true bond that few girls ever find. It shows how people can feel threatened by those who have found happiness outside of what is normal. It show why people might do things because they want that same connection, and try to destroy the connection of those they are jealous of.

What if you had a group of friends that you knew you could trust to never say anything about your worst secrets? How far would you go to protect that bond? This is a deeply philosophical movie about the importance of having good relationships with people that you can trust, as opposed to people who merely flatter you. It is a movie about not being understood, but being allowed to just be. "Modsommar" actually explores a very similar theme, but that film takes it even further, and with a lot of grotesque scenes, but this film achieves the same overall effect, without leaving you feeling dirty and gross. If you don't mind teenage movies with emotionally teenagers, you might find a lot to like, otherwise, avoid.

~Amy