This year’s film festival has once again yielded an incredibly wide range of genres. The coming-of-age narrative is one we’re all familiar with, both compellingly in fiction and more tangibly as simply growing up ourselves. At the festival’s Friday night showing of 32A, it is precisely this bittersweet sense of familiarity that writer and director Marian Quinn successfully evokes in her story of four 13-year-old girls growing up in Dublin.
Protagonist Maeve Brennan is an awkward, intelligent character with three raucous siblings, a thoughtful father and a mother who undergoes surgery to remove a tumor from her breast. Her three best friends are also charming, smart girls who relax with Maeve on a bench to gossip about who’s going out with who while stopping occasionally to muse over the size of women’s breasts. The four girls begin to experience trouble when attractive, mature Brian Power starts paying a curious amount of attention to Maeve. She experiences a clandestine night at the local dance club with him, and in turn stands up the rest of her friends who are waiting to meet one girl’s estranged father.
The characters and acting are two ways by which this movie succeeds. Each girl speaks candidly about her concerns, frustrations and hopes. The truthfulness of each young girl’s experience is remarkably relatable while avoiding formula or clich?. We watch as Maeve smokes pot for the first time, gets into a club she is too young to be in and then gets her heart broken. We see the irrational, yet incredibly painful experience of hurting our friends and getting hurt in return. This movie addresses the reality of growing up: A desire to become more social and connected with our peers, while struggling to grow as an individual and also fulfill a role in the family.
The movie’s sentimentality is not overdone, however. The humor of seeing Maeve’s friends chat about enlarged female sex organs, or trying to buy a bra for the first time while the store clerk shows off each purchase to a father, add color and fullness to an already incredibly endearing tale. It becomes clear that Quinn is interested in portraying life exactly as it has been for all young women wanting to be beautiful — and realizing that is most possible when being yourself with the people you love.
The film also raises issues about the role of the parent. Maeve’s friend, Ruth, is a strong, dignified teen whose father left nine years prior. She shows Maeve photos of her mom presumably with a black eye and speaks bluntly about her father’s alleged abuse. A scene where three of the girls end up in a taxi with this man is one of the most electric, suspenseful scenes in the film. Ruth’s pain comes to life while the audience is horrified and sympathetic.
This exploration of the theme of family is indicated also when the four girls relax by the water and discuss whether they want kids or will ever get married. These are choices no one can make at age 13, yet they are questions that we are socialized to ask well into our adulthood.
The film’s raw emotion, honesty and intuitive use of humor combine to portray a must-see coming-of-age story. Maeve is the perfect combination of selfishness, nobility, charm and awkwardness. While her story is not simple, it is one we will return to again and again with the knowledge that friendships and family are most important in these turbulent, formative years.
