Coming-of-Age

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir by Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes is an alternately funny and heartbreaking look at growing up in Ireland. Born in Brooklyn, NY, young Frank (Joe Breen) moves at an early age to Limerick, Ireland, with his parents Angela (Emily Watson) and Malachy (Robert Carlyle), who have been unable to support their family in America and are hoping for better prospects in their home country. But things hardly improve once they settle in Limerick; as McCourt puts it, "Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood. Worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." Illness and death are commonplace in Limerick, and Malachy's drinking and inability to hold a job make matters worse. Angela's Ashes was directed by Alan Parker, who previously looked at Irish life in The Commitments (1991); Laura Jones wrote the screenplay. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Canadian filmmaker Scott Smith directs the black comedy Falling Angels, based on the novel by Barbara Gowdy and adapted for the screen by poet and author Esta Spalding. Set in the late '60s and filmed on-location in Saskatchewan, this dark family drama focuses on the three teenaged daughters of the Field household. Callum Keith Rennie plays Jim Field, the loud-mouthed, domineering patriarch who has intimidated his wife Mary (Miranda Richardson) into a catatonic state of alcoholism and depression. Norma (Monté Gagné) is the oldest, most responsible daughter; she is overburdened and preoccupied by events from the past. Middle child Lou (Katharine Isabelle) chooses the rebellious path in order to escape her father's unreasonable demands. Youngest daughter Sandy (Kristin Adams) aspires to maximum femininity, engaging in an affair with an older, married man (Mark McKinney) in the process. Falling Angels was shown at the 2003 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck co-scripted and star in this drama, set in Boston and Cambridge, about rebellious 20-year-old MIT janitor Will Hunting (Damon), gifted with a photographic memory, who hangs out with his South Boston bar buddies, his best friend Chuckie (Affleck), and his affluent British girlfriend Skylar (Minnie Driver). After MIT professor Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgard) stumps students with a challenging math formula on a hallway blackboard, Will anonymously leaves the correct solution, prompting Lambeau to track the elusive young genius. As Will's problems with the police escalate, Lambeau offers an out, but with two conditions -- visits to a therapist and weekly math sessions. Will agrees to the latter but refuses to cooperate with a succession of therapists. Lambeau then contacts his former classmate, therapist Sean McGuire (Robin Williams), an instructor at Bunker Hill Community College. Both are equally stubborn, but Will is finally forced to deal with both his past and his future. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

A teenager is torn between her desire to please her mother and following her own ambitions in this family-friendly comedy drama. Casey Carlyle (Michelle Trachtenberg) is a high-school student who has a keen mind for math and looks to be on the fast track to Harvard, which is just the way her mother (Joan Cusack) wants it. However, Casey also has a dream of becoming a competitive ice skater, which is not a popular notion with either Casey's mom or her school's clique of aspiring skaters, led by the egocentric Gen (Hayden Panettiere). However, one day at the rink Casey wins the attention of Tina (Kim Cattrall), a former skating champion who now trains her daughter and is trying to live down an incident that grounded her career on the ice. Tina thinks Casey has what it takes to be a champ, but neither Gen nor Casey's mother are happy with this news, leaving Casey and Tina to go it alone, though Casey soon wins the emotional support of Teddy (Trevor Blumas), Gen's handsome older brother. Ice Princess also features champion skater Michelle Kwan in a small role as herself, doing television commentary at a skating event. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Margot at the Wedding, writer/director Noah Baumbach's follow-up to his Oscar-nominated The Squid and the Whale, stars Nicole Kidman as Margot, a woman who travels with her son to the wedding of her sister (Jennifer Jason Leigh). The relationship between the two siblings has never been harmonious, a situation that is exacerbated when Margot discovers she cares very little for her sister's fiancé (Jack Black). Soon the high-strung Margot escalates a feud between her sister and the neighbors, and family secrets come to light, forcing everyone to rethink their various feelings toward each other. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

In a village in China mired in poverty, Gao (Gao Enman) is the lone teacher in a school so threadbare he must ration chalk to make sure he has enough for the day. The destitution of the village is not limited to the school; some of the children sleep in the schoolhouse because they have nowhere else to go, and many students have already dropped out to go to work to help feed their families. Gao is forced to leave town for a month, and no one in the village is able to take over for him except a 13-year-old girl, Wei Minzhi (Wei Minzhi), who possesses only the most rudimentary education herself. What she lacks in educational credential, she makes up for in determination -- she needs money, and teaching is an honest job that pays, and since she'll get a 10 yuan bonus if all 28 students are still attending when Gao gets back, she is determined that no one will drop out on her watch. So when one student turns up missing, and word has it he's been sent to the city by his mother to work, she travels to the city to look for him. In a place where thousands of children are working in the underground labor force or begging on the street, one boy hardly stands out from the crowd, and she has little luck. However, she's able to persuade a sympathetic TV station manager to let her make an announcement in hopes someone knows where he has gone. Despite its serious and often grim theme, Yi Ge Dou Bu Neng Shao is often light in tone and draws on the strength and humor of its characters; the film won the Golden Lion at the 1999 Venice Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Operating under the assumption that by procuring alcohol for an upcoming party they will finally be able to break their longstanding losing streak with the fairer sex, socially inept high school seniors Evan (Michael Cera) and Seth (Jonah Hill) set out to secure the adult beverages that could get them off of the geek list before they even attend college orientation. Evan is a bright young student whose outward sweetness belies his suffocating fear of heading off to college without his lifelong best friend Seth -- a hormone-driven mischief-maker who wasn't accepted to the same school as Evan. But Evan and Seth both know that college is a place of personal reinvention, and that if they are able to make that first leap together they will have forged a bond powerful enough to last a lifetime. Meanwhile, Evan and Seth's friend Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) acquires a hastily rendered fake I.D. that instantly endears him to a pair of truly irresponsible cops (Bill Hader and Seth Rogen). Penned by co-star Rogen in collaboration with former Da Ali G Show co-writer Evan Goldberg, the semi-autobiographical SuperBad was produced by Judd Apatow and directed by Greg Mottola -- who previously helmed episodes of Undeclared and Arrested Development. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Pregnant 17-year-old Novalee Nation (Natalie Portman) runs away from her Tennessee home toward the bright lights of California, accompanied by her boyfriend, Willy Jack Pickins (Dylan Bruno). But Willy gets cold feet and abandons her at a Wal-Mart in Sequoyah, OK. Novalee's life savings amount to $5.55, so she moves into the Wal-Mart, sleeping there at night and venturing out during the day. With the help of the eccentric Sister Husband (Stockard Channing), and Lexie Coop (Ashley Judd), a nurses' aide, Novalee tries to get her life in order for the sake of her expected child, Americus Nation. Based on a novel by Billie Letts, Where the Heart Is also features Keith David, Joan Cusack, Richard Nance, and Heather Kafka. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Writer and director Cameron Crowe's experiences as a teenage rock journalist -- he was a regular contributor to Rolling Stone while still in high school -- inspired this coming-of-age story about a 15-year-old boy hitting the road with an up-and-coming rock band in the early 1970s. Elaine Miller (Frances McDormand) is a bright, loving, but strict single parent whose distrust of rock music and fears about drug use have helped to drive a wedge between herself and her two children, Anita (Zooey Deschanel) and William (Patrick Fugit). Anita rebels by dropping out of school and becoming a stewardess, but William makes something of his love of rock & roll by writing album reviews for a local underground newspaper. William's work attracts the attention of Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman), editor of renegade rock magazine Creem, who takes William under his wing and gives him his first professional writing assignment -- covering a Black Sabbath concert. While William is unable to score an interview with the headliners, the opening act, Stillwater, are more than happy to chat with a reporter, even if he's still too young to drive, and William's piece on the group in Creem gains him a new admirer in Ben Fong-Torres (Terry Chen), an editor at Rolling Stone. Torres offers William an assignment for a 3,000-word cover story on Stillwater, and over the objections of his mother (whose parting words are "Don't use drugs!"), and after some stern advice from Bangs (who says under no circumstances should he become friends with a band he's covering), Williams joins Stillwater on tour, where he becomes friendly with guitarist Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) and singer Jeff Bebe (Jason Lee). William also becomes enamored of Penny Lane (Kate Hudson), a groupie traveling with the band who is no older than William, but is deeply involved with Russell. Lester Bangs and Ben Fong-Torres, incidentally, were real-life rock writers Crowe worked with closely during his days as a journalist. Almost Famous' original score was composed by Nancy Wilson of Heart (who is also Crowe's wife).
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A poor but ambitious young man strives to make good in one of the most competitive institutions on Earth in this military drama. Jake Huard (James Franco) is a young man from a small Maryland town who grew up in a blue-collar family with few opportunities. Wanting to make something of himself after completing high school, Jake set his sights on attending the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, where he narrowly makes the cut and becomes one of the 1,200 applicants selected for the freshman class. Jake finds that life as a "plebe" is intellectually challenging and physically punishing, and he soon develops a powerful adversary in Midshipman Lt. Cole (Tyrese Gibson), his training commander, who pushes Jake to the limit to see if he has what it takes. Standing on the razor's edge of failing as both a student and a soldier, Jake makes a brave but dangerous gesture toward proving himself by entering the Brigade Championships, a Naval boxing competition where he'll go into the ring against the best fighters in the Navy -- including Lt. Cole. Jake soon has one person on his side when he strikes up a friendship with Ali (Jordana Brewster), a pretty young officer who believes Jake has what it takes to go the distance. Annapolis also stars Donnie Wahlberg, Chi McBride, and Vicellous Shannon; the film was directed by Justin Lin, who debuted with the acclaimed independent feature Better Luck Tomorrow. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

As with his earlier film The Joy Luck Club (1993), Chinese director Wayne Wang tackles mother-daughter relationships in this coming of age comedy-drama. Susan Sarandon stars as Adele August, a Bay City, Wisconsin, mother who longs for a more exciting and glamorous life in Beverly Hills, California. So she leaves her husband (Ray Baker) and packs her reluctant daughter Ann (Natalie Portman) into a gold Mercedes Benz, heading for L.A. When they arrive and move into an apartment they can't really afford, it becomes clear that Ann is the mature half of the duo, while Adele, a dreamer, is not firmly grounded in reality. Her plans include Ann's future career as an actress (a profession in which the girl has no interest) and landing a rich and handsome husband for herself, such as a dentist (Hart Bochner) who never calls Adele again after a one-night stand. When a family tragedy provokes a crisis between mother and daughter, the irresponsible Adele is forced to become a traditional mom for once. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Adapted from the novel by Myla Goldberg, Bee Season tells the story of a family whose turmoil is brought to the surface by a young girl's unexpected talent. Eleven-year-old Eliza (Flora Cross) is the invisible element of her family unit -- her mother and father (played by Juliette Binoche and Richard Gere) are both consumed with work and busy avoiding their faltering marriage. Her brother, praised for musical genius, is wrapped up in his own adolescent life. Eliza ignites not only a spark that makes her visible but one that sets into motion a revolution in her family dynamic when she wins a spelling bee. Finding an emotional outlet in the power of words and in the spiritual mysticism that he sees at work in her unparalleled gift, Eliza's father pours all of his energy into helping his daughter become spelling bee champion, further distancing himself from his wife and son. A religious studies professor, he sees the opportunity as not only a distraction from his life but as an answer to his own crisis of faith. His vicarious path to God, real or imagined, leads to an obsession with Eliza's success and he begins teaching her secrets of the Kabbalah. Now preparing for the National Spelling Bee, and with her family spreading further and further into four separate directions, Eliza looks on as a new secret of her family's hidden turmoil seems to be revealed with each new word she spells. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide

The sophomore outing for Mark Illsley, the writer and director of 1999's Happy Texas, Bookies is a return to the crime comedy genre of the filmmaker's first project. Starring Nick Stahl, Lukas Haas, and Johnny Galecki as college buddies Toby, Casey, and Jude, the film begins with the trio upset over a substantial gambling loss. After paying up, they decide that they are on the wrong side of the transaction and concoct a plan to become bookies themselves. Working in the shadows so as not to let on that they are anything but professionals, the young entrepreneurs devise a system that involves leaving money in unpopular books at the library where Jude works. Before they know it, the guys are rolling in the dough. Casey buys a bunch of computer equipment, Jude gets himself a drug habit, and Toby uses his newfound wealth to impress Hunter, a fellow student played by Rachael Leigh Cook. But just as fast as things started to go well, they take an unexpected turn. The boys are making so much money that they're cutting into the business of the local mafia. As one might expect, the thugs don't take too kindly to competition. Also starring John Diehl and David Proval, Bookies premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide