10 Coming-of-Age Movies for Graduates and Prospective Freshmen
Sing Street (2016); image from MovieStillsDB.com
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The well-known “love chapter” in 1 Corinthians includes Paul’s famous commendation of maturity: “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” (1 Cor. 13:11).
As he urges the church at Corinth to “grow up” into faith, hope and love, the great apostle counts on wide agreement regarding the benefits of leaving childhood and becoming an adult. This notion is indeed so popular that it has spawned an entire narrative genre—namely, the “coming of age” tale.
While this estimable category dates back to such literary classics as Oliver Twist, Jane Eyre, and perhaps even Hamlet, it’s also a favorite on the silver screen.
So in this summer of ’21—the age of maturity in many minds—as high school and college grads step toward adulthood, Beautiful Christian Life presents a slate of worthy films about growing up:
1. Desert Bloom (1986; PG-13)
Lesser-known actress Annabeth Gish triumphs in this lesser-known triumph set in Las Vegas in 1950. Gish plays Rose Chismore, an adolescent struggling with her stepfather, Jack. He is a World War II vet who has PTSD, an injured leg, a working wife, and a fairly intractable drinking problem.
Jon Voight—who has now made over 70 films—gives one of his best performances in that role, with excellent support from JoBeth Williams as Jack’s wife, Ellen Barkin as his sister-in-law, and especially Jay Underwood as a gallant neighbor who is crushing on Rose.
This heartfelt little gem deserves a wider audience.
2. Great Expectations (1946; not rated)
Charles Dickens’s beloved 1861 novel—perhaps the quintessential coming-of-age tale—has been filmed at least eleven times; but this handsome black-and-white version from director David Lean is arguably the best. Set in the early nineteenth century, it follows the poor young orphan Pip as he falls for a snooty older girl, works hard to become a gentleman for her—and then gets a massive surprise that changes the course of his life.
Or would that be two surprises?
While Lean is best known for the epics Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, and Bridge on the River Kwai, he also mastered literary adaptations of such other works as Oliver Twist (1948) and A Passage to India (1984). Here he gets help from a stellar cast including John Mills, Jean Simmons, Mervyn Johns, and an almost unrecognizable young Alec Guinness.
Unbelievably, Lean and his team of co-writers—which included fellow director Ronald Neame and actress Kay Walsh—actually improved on the two different endings Dickens wrote for the book.
Mike Newell’s 2012 version, starring Ralph Fiennes, is also excellent.
3. Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016; PG-13)
Written and directed by Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit), Hunt focuses on snarky, overweight 13-year-old Ricky Baker, who is being fostered by a childless couple on a remote New Zealand farm. The citified Ricky hates his new home, while his foster-father Hec (Sam Neill) feels similarly toward his young charge; and then circumstances conspire to strand the two together in the harsh New Zealand wilderness.
There they wrestle with dense brush, a broken leg, three-foot eels, wild boars, a few human oddballs, and a bunch of pursuers convinced that Hec means the boy harm.
Alternately humorous, painful, exciting, quirky, and inspirational, this lovely film also provides enormous closure at the end.
In the words of Ricky’s “uncle,” “It’s fantastical.” Free on YouTube.
4. The Journey of Natty Gann (1985; PG)
This live-action charmer from Disney occurs during the Great Depression, with the titular teen taking a cross-country trek to reconnect with her single-parent father, who is working in the Pacific Northwest.
Navigating a gritty world realized with exceptional authenticity, Natty encounters dogfights; Hoovervilles; forests, streams and mountains; the kindness of strangers; cattle rustling; juvenile detention; at least one creepy adult; lots of handsome steam trains; and a hint of young love (the last in the form of a charismatic young John Cusack).
Despite a long career, actress Meredith Salenger remains best known for her dynamite lead performance here. She is utterly enchanting, yet never cute or coy.
Now all grown up at age 51, the star is married to fellow actor Patton Oswalt.
5. Matinee (1995; PG)
Coming-of-age is only one plot-strand in this delightful nostalgia piece set in Key West on the eve of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Various adolescents deal with siblings, young love, and adult paranoia as the local movie-house readies for a visit from fictional Hollywood schlock-meister Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman), whose latest camp classic concerns a hapless human transmogrifying into a giant ant. That film-within-a-film, comically called “Mant!”, is a dead-on satire of late-fifties drive-in claptrap; yet Matinee itself is surprisingly tender and nostalgic, with cool period detail and several veteran character actors: Dick Miller, William Schallert, and John Sayles. And yes, that’s young Naomi Watts appearing briefly in a second in-film spoof. Available to rent on YouTube.
6. My Life as a Zucchini (2016; PG-13)
Laced with luscious stop-motion animation, Zucchini is the story of a nine-year-old nicknamed “Courgette”—a type of squash. A blue-haired, carrot-nosed, red-eared, long-limbed lad who winds up at an orphanage with five or six other misfits, Courgette gradually finds his niche in this offbeat community—especially as he draws close to a troubled and slightly older resident named Camille.
The idiosyncratic visuals are so painstakingly perfect that it took two years to complete this brief, 66-minute feature. Zucchini, in other words, is a film suffused with love, both in the way it looks and the way it feels. Fair warning, though: A few crude lines involving the kids’ kooky ideas about sex hobble its otherwise family-friendly content.
Originally French, the film has been dubbed into English with a new voice cast including Will Forte, Ellen Page, Nick Offerman, and Amy Sedaris—but I sure wish they had also translated the tantalizing post-credit scene! Free on YouTube.
7. Sing Street (2016; PG-13)
Director John Carney, who gave us Once and Begin Again, certainly knows how to make movies about music—and this third effort may be his best.
Set in 1980s Dublin, it is named for a fictitious boy band cobbled together by protagonist Conor Lalor to impress an older girl he’s smitten with. Despite this inauspicious inception, Sing Street quickly begins churning out one infectious tune after another, not only winning the girl but also forging unlikely alliances across the treacherous social strata of Catholic school.
Newcomer Ferdia Walsh-Peelo is terrific, getting excellent support from Lucy Boynton and a sensational Jack Reynor as Conor’s charismatic older bro.
Many of these tunes sound like they should have been eighties hits; you may want to pick up the soundtrack after enjoying this exhilarating Irish treat. Available to rent on YouTube.
8. Vitus (2007; PG)
A foreign-language film about a musical boy-genius probably doesn’t sound too thrilling. But Vitus actually concerns a lad who, though clearly a piano prodigy, desperately wants a normal childhood; yet he doesn’t know how to resist his pushy, ambitious, self-centered parents. One night, something happens that shows him a possible path to freedom. Even after that, this amazing sleeper isn’t anywhere near finished.
A feel-good winner suitable for the whole family. Available to rent on YouTube.
9. The War of the Buttons (1994; PG)
This little-known but utterly delightful comedy about two rival gangs of Irish schoolboys from the adjoining and winsomely named towns of Carrickdowse and Ballydowse features a cast of unknowns—except for the terrific Colm Meaney (of Star Trek: TNG). The gangs battle it out in a series of skirmishes both comic and painful, with the winner hauling off buttons torn from the losers’ clothing—hence the title.
Featuring a letter-perfect finale, War was scripted by Colin Welland, who won an Oscar for 1982’s Chariots of Fire.
(Content caveat: War comfortably retains its PG rating despite a scene in which one group’s tactic is to charge down on the other without any clothes on; it’s tastefully filmed and very funny.)
For years this film was impossible to find, but it is now available to rent on YouTube and Amazon Prime Video.
10. The World of Henry Orient (1967; not rated)
Director George Roy Hill had a penchant for unusual choices: comic Western (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid); biplane drama (The Great Waldo Pepper); spy thriller with a female lead (The Little Drummer Girl); hockey comedy (Slap Shot); con movie in the Roaring Twenties (The Sting); young geniuses in love (A Little Romance)—and even a decent version of Kurt Vonnegut’s seemingly un-filmable Slaughterhouse-Five.
Orient is an early Hill work which some consider the best film ever made about friendship between pre-adolescent girls; but again, how many titles can you think of in that category?
With a cast including Peter Sellers, Angela Lansbury, and Tom Bosley, it headlines first-timers Tippy Walker and Merrie Spaeth as girls who instantly become besties after meeting at an exclusive private school in Manhattan.
Though it was America’s entry at the Cannes festival that year, the movie takes a while to get moving, and its gags don’t always work. But the two girls are marvelous—and if you stick with it till the final act, you’ll find that it has really taken hold of your heart.
After those closing scenes, you almost wish they had made a sequel. Free on YouTube.
