Big Girls Don’t Cry

It’s the summer holidays and 14-year-old Sid is adrift. Days are spent listlessly avoiding her distracted father (a fantastic Noah Taylor), while evenings see her exploring the murky worlds of online chatrooms. Caught on the cusp between childhood and adulthood, and experiencing the first bloom of sexuality, she is desperate to fit in, even modelling her behaviour after a group of older teens. Executive produced by Jane Campion and screening to great acclaim at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Schneideman’s assured and intimate drama explores an age when desire and sexuality often feel impossible to articulate, but overwhelm in their intensity. Newcomer Ani Palmer perfectly captures these emotions in a performance that feels bracingly real and lived in.

Grace Barber-Plentie

Content advice

Contains scenes of drug use, nudity, and sex.

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