Bande de filles 2014

Sara Stewart, New York Post: [A] vibrant portrait of a teenage girl (Karidja Toure) who joins a female gang as an escape from her life in the projects. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: Celine Sciamma's Girlhood advances the French helmer's obsession with how society attempts to force teenage girls into familiar categories, when the individuals themselves don't conform so easily. Read more

Jesse Hassenger, AV Club: Writer-director Celine Sciamma expertly places her characters in that nebulous region between child and adult. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: The movie captures that heady adolescent sense of time stopping and the moment mattering while standing far enough back to let us acknowledge all the pitfalls Marieme is moving too fast to see. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Physical force governs every relationship in Girlhood. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Throughout "Girlhood" the malignant energy that results from having a scary home life never entirely dissipates. Yet the story allows for a full array of emotional peaks and valleys. Read more

David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter: Where many filmmakers would have underlined the bleaker, harsher aspects, Girlhood presents the characters' grim reality without surrendering its lightness of touch, its compassion or its hope. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Beautifully observed, precisely directed and acted with wonderful conviction, it pulls us into the life of its protagonist in a deeply involving way. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Director Sciamma uses an uncommonly light touch in depicting Marieme's gradual transformation from an unformed blank slate into a self-assured girl who doesn't always make the right decisions in the process of figuring herself out. Read more

Richard Brody, New Yorker: A sequel, please. Read more

Ella Taylor, NPR: Sciamma deserves all credit for filling [a] vacuum. By its end, though, Girlhood, by comparison, feels like the work of a sympathetic outsider who can't resist working her own agenda. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: While "Girlhood" is sad and wrenching, it doesn't feel like a misery-mongering expression of high-minded (and therefore condescending) concern. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: "Girlhood" is about as grim as movies get, but it's showing something real, and Sciamma has a feel for this period of life, the camaraderie, the jokes, the kinds of conflicts, the panic and the hope. Read more

Kristin Tillotson, Minneapolis Star Tribune: From the opening montage of Marieme and other girls playing American football in full uniform, "Girlhood" resonates as something special. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Sciamma (Water Lilies, Tomboy) gets unaffected performances from her non-professional cast. Read more

Inkoo Kang, TheWrap: "Save for a few standout scenes of carefree elation and daring camaraderie, 'Girlhood' is largely a grim and stilted study of oppression." Read more

Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice: The movie's an empathetic triumph. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: "Girlhood" is a mesmerizing exercise in the enlightenment that can happen when a filmmaker shifts the male cinematic gaze ever so slightly and uncovers what looks like a whole new world. Read more