Pariah

Alike is a seventeen-year-old African-American teenager living in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood with her parents and younger sister. Bright and quietly self-assured, she dresses in baggy, boyish clothes and is drawn to women, a part of herself she keeps hidden at home, where her mother's strict, conservative expectations press hardest. Encouraged by her closest friend Laura, she begins looking for a girlfriend and for a way to live openly, while weighing how much she can confide in her family. Her father is a gentler, more approachable presence than her mother, and the strain of moving between two versions of herself gradually becomes untenable.

Pariah is a 2011 American drama written and directed by Dee Rees, marking her feature debut and the first entry in her filmography, followed by Bessie, Mudbound and The Last Thing He Wanted. Nekisa Cooper produced, and the cast of thirty-six is led by Adepero Oduye as Alike, alongside Pernell Walker, Aasha Davis, Charles Parnell, Sahra Mellesse and Kim Wayans.

On IMDb the film holds a rating of 7.2 from around 8,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.9 from a much smaller 169 votes. A critics' rating of 7.9 from 122 reviews places it above both audience scores. The modest vote counts on TMDB reflect a limited art-house release rather than broad commercial reach.