Pariah
Focus Features | Release Date: December 28, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
79
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
33
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Washington PostAnn HornadayJan 6, 2012
This invigoratingly fresh, optimistic film - which features the breathtaking debuts of director Dee Rees and leading lady Adepero Oduye - plunges the audience into a world that's both tough and tender, vivid and grim, drenched in poetry and music and pain and discovery. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumJan 4, 2012
Rees presents this vivid, hidden culture with raw honesty. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleAmy BiancolliDec 28, 2011
The film benefits most of all from Rees' careful screenplay, which dances that shifting line between fear and emergent hope. One of Alike's poems says it best: "Even breaking is opening. And I am broken. I am open." Read full review
91
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthJan 4, 2019
A film with a universal sensitivity that relates the pangs of first love, the desirous ache of adolescent sexuality and the excitement of not just discovering yourself but finding those kindred spirits with whom you can share your life. Read full review
90
NPRElla TaylorDec 30, 2011
The movie is anything but combative. Pariah is a tender, sporadically goofy, yet candid examination of emergent identity, a film whose lack of attitude sets it apart from much of the hard-bitten, thug-life storytelling that's dominated African-American cinema for decades. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenJan 11, 2012
Yes, it's a coming-out film, but it breaks that mold by being thoroughly unpredictable. It's a coming-of-age film, too, and by virtue of of telling the story of a young, black lesbian, Pariah also ventures into novel territory for a motion picture. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonJan 20, 2012
Like Elizabeth Olsen in "Martha Marcy May Marlene," Oduye brilliantly slips inside the skin of a sensitive young woman who's having trouble finding her place in the world. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie RickeyJan 12, 2012
Rees tells Alike's story in vignettes that are sometimes slapstick, sometimes heartbreaking, always tender. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 5, 2012
The payoffs here begin and end with Oduye, and as we see this character confront her obstacles with bravery, grace and resolve, "Pariah" exhibits many of the same traits, for which filmgoers can be thankful. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertJan 4, 2012
So what we're seeing here is the emergence of a promising writer-director, an actor and a cinematographer who are all exciting, and have cared to make a film that seeks helpful truths. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversDec 29, 2011
The gifted Rees makes finding out a stirring and heartfelt journey. And Oduye is unforgettable. A star is born. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianShawn LevyJan 12, 2012
It's a tiny story, told on an intimate scale, and it is rich in emotion, specificity and care. Read full review
80
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottMar 9, 2012
While Pariah starts out as a film with moments of predictability, it evolves into a smart, compelling -- and optimistic -- portrait of heartbreak and hope. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJan 12, 2012
Especially rewarding about Oduye's performance is how she's able to portray that frustration while retaining hope and optimism. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJan 5, 2012
It's not fair to say that Ms. Davis steals scenes - one of the movie's strengths is its ensemble cast - but she supercharges every scene she's in. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'HehirJan 4, 2012
If the narrative of Pariah is predictable and its delivery system rather after-school special, the characters and setting are unforgettable and Lee's coming-of-age story feels both true and moving. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierDec 29, 2011
Oduye, especially, is utterly absorbing. Even in those few moments when the movie follows a slightly more straightforward line than it needs, she is always engagingly, beautifully real. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyDec 28, 2011
At its soulful heart, Pariah is a stinging street-smart story of an African American teen's struggle to come of age and come out - to the father who still calls her "daddy's little girl" and the mother who quotes the Bible and buys her pink frills. Read full review
80
MovielineAlison WillmoreDec 28, 2011
Pariah wouldn't work without Oduye's luminous performance, capturing the emotional nuances of a character not prone to letting her emotions show. Read full review
80
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonDec 27, 2011
The first 10 minutes of Dee Rees's funny, moving, nuanced, and impeccably acted first feature, in which coming of age and coming out are inseparable, sharply reveal the conflicts that 17-year-old Alike (Adepero Oduye) faces. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenJan 12, 2012
Occasionally, Rees's script seems to mimic Alike's poetry, and fall into its own slough of earnestness, as the stages of the girl's dawning enlightenment get dutifully ticked off like stations of the cross. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisJan 5, 2012
This is a movie that feels in all its vividness, specificity, and honesty - and in its amateurish screenwriting, too - like something found from the early- to mid-1990s, when American independent moviemaking encouraged far more conversations about the sexuality of young, brown girls in movies like "Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.'' and "I Like It Like That.'' Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerDec 30, 2011
The filmmaking is often wayward, the scenes of confrontation sometimes too stagey, but Oduye is a marvelous young actress with a camera-ready face brimming with soulfulness. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia PuigDec 29, 2011
The film's resolution is uplifting but not unrealistic, and Pariah exercises restraint by not tying up every loose end. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickDec 28, 2011
This is a look at the joy, confusion and heartbreak of adolescence that's both culture- and locale-specific and, at the same time, universal. Read full review
70
TimeMary PolsDec 29, 2011
Pariah should be a special, important film for gay teens and their parents. Read full review
70
The New York TimesStephen HoldenDec 27, 2011
At its heart is an incandescent performance by Ms. Oduye, who captures the jagged mood swings of late adolescence with a wonderfully spontaneous fluency. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeDec 27, 2011
First-timer Dee Rees offers a fresh take on the overfamiliar coming-out genre. Read full review
70
VarietyAndrew BarkerDec 27, 2011
Vivid photography, true-to-life moments and a wonderful lead performance compensate for some first-timer missteps in debutante writer-director Dee Rees' Pariah. Read full review
70
Boxoffice MagazineSara Maria VizcarrondoDec 10, 2011
The messy uplift audiences can expect from this butterfly awakening they'll get in spades. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasDec 29, 2011
There are times when even its subtleties seem predictable, when it questions dramatic conventions that indie films have already questioned, like the temperament of movie-parents whose children fear coming out of the closet. Yet the film has an abiding sweetness that's ultimately irresistible. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJan 3, 2012
The movie's point, which is impossible to miss, is that it's hard being black & gay in America and, while there's undoubtedly truth in that sentiment, it doesn't necessarily make for a compelling motion picture circa 2011. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineEd GonzalezDec 10, 2011
It's important to talk at length about Pariah's aesthetic because of how it distracts from the emotional truthfulness of the sometimes heartbreaking, by and large gorgeously performed story. Read full review
60
Time OutDavid FearDec 20, 2011
Establishing character, conflict and environment with astounding economy in the film's first ten minutes, Rees demonstrates the sort of filmmaking chops and personal storytelling (the director claims she drew on her own coming-out experience) that suggests the low-key epiphanies of Amerindie cinema at its best. Read full review
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