Just perfect...

I wanted to but couldn't!

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This is a coming of age story for Grace (Ryan Destiny) raised by a single Haitian mother (Garcelle Beauvais) with outward beauty, but dubious morals. Grace is smart and doesn't want to be like her mother, yet is drawn down the same path. Grace turns inward after her best friend (Paige Hurd) kills herself, the circumstances we get to know in flashbacks. Grace is coaxed out of her shell with many negative results, much of her own doing. Meagan Good plays Grace's new BFF and mentor for better and worse.This is a well acted film, although I thought parts were over done. It touches on bulling and finding your true self.Guide: F-word, sex, and rape.

It's OK. I liked the way it was filmed and it had a lot of promise, but it feels like the movie was edited for time and kind of skipped around leaving out important details. I wouldn't even call this a coming of age tale. I would call it more a chic turning a 360, random tale. One scene she loses her virginity and likes this guy and literally the next evening she's out hitting on other men at the club with no explanation on why she dropped the other guy. Then when she gets raped and her and Cher show back up, she doesn't shoot the dudes or do anything. She just runs away and lets her friend take the fall. At the end of the movie you almost no longer feel sorry for her, but instead start to resent her.

I rate movies based on their ability to leave me with new questions. I left wanting to understand more about the mother (played by Garcelle Beauvais) - to deconstruct her if you will - from the fear she had about her daughter's sexual identity (what exactly was her underlying fear? why wasn't she more afraid of the fate her daughter would meet at the hands of sexual predators and/or men who might otherwise exploit her?); to the lack of what I'd like to call a maternal muscle; and, to her own inherited broken cycles of what love looks and feels like. I wanted to know more about how class and culture affected her capacity to render the kind of nurture and compassion that her daughter (played by Ryan Destiny) so desperately needed. Ultimately, this was a movie about identity and beauty; how we see ourselves and the way we think the rest of the world sees us and/or the ones we love is absolutely critical to who we ultimately become.

Trigger Warning(s): Self-Harm, Bullying, and Gang RapeReview (with Spoilers)Noted Actor(s)Grace (Ryan Destiny) | Share (Meagan Good) | Lisa (Garcelle Beauvais) | Mary (Raven Symoné) | Andrea (Paige Hurd) | Jason (Romeo Miller) | Matt (Ty Hodges)StorylineA girl like Grace. A good girl with few friends, but those friendships were everything to her. However, now one is gone and though she still has her guy friend Matt, it isn't the same. But having him there is better than no one for senior year. A tough time because so much happened over the summer. Something neither Grace's mom Lisa nor the local bully Mary, seem to really care about nor take responsibility for their part in it. Yet maybe Jason, this boy who likes Grace, could be a silver lining? Maybe Share, Andrea's sister, the one who left, can fill in the gap of time Andrea left? Who knows? Maybe senior year may not be as bad as Grace was expecting it to be right?Things To Note | Question(s) Left UnansweredThe scenes of self-harm aren't too graphic. It is a blade across the wrist and blood coming out but no open wound. The rape scene is mostly camera tricks with us seeing from the survivor/victim's point of view. There aren't any screams, no moans, and sighs, just the visual of multiple men on top of them. How old was Share? HighlightsRyan DestinyOriginally the highlight was going to be the relationship between Grace and Andrea. However, then I realized how well the relationship and chemistry is between Grace and most of the characters in the film. Leading to the realization it was all Ryan Destiny. This little thing, who most may know either due to her stint in LoveDollhouse or the upcoming series Star may just be more than another cute face given an acting career. For while she doesn't get the opportunity to show any emotional range, it is undeniable she does have a presence on screen. On top of that, she has this chemistry with damn near anyone she works with which whether it is as adversaries, as it is with Raven, as lovers, as we see with Miller, or something a bit complicated, as we see with Hurd, she adapts to the situation and the person. Making it so you are given a taste of who she can be, how well she can mesh to various situations, and while she still has room to grow as an actress, the potential is there.CriticismNot Enough DetailsWhile enough is given to fill in the details, thanks to a snide comment here or assumptions you can make, at times it felt like you didn't get a full grip on what made a character become like they did. Either in terms of who they are by the end of the movie or who they were when the movie started. Andrea is perhaps the prime example for while her situation is understandable, in terms of feeling like an outsider who just wants to get away or disappear, when it came to the bullying and this situation she has with Mary, we are given just enough to get the point. We aren't given a fully fleshed out person but more so have to rely on our own experiences with people like Andrea, either personal or through media, to fully understand the character. That is, as opposed to the story and Hurd doing so.It doesn't necessarily end there either. For Lisa, pretty much you have to rely on stereotypes, to a certain degree, to understand what makes her as she is. Could she act the way she does because she solely relied on being pretty and not much else? That is what Grace says, but that feels like a shallow reason doesn't it? We are going to funnel every issue Lisa could have and give the blanket reason for them being that she relied too heavily on her looks? Surely, in an age where women demand meatier roles, especially the often forgotten Black woman, something more could have been written and done. Especially since it isn't like Beauvais is new to the game. She could certainly handle a character with some weight to them.Leaving Grace. As much as I may praise the chemistry Destiny brings to her character's relationships with everyone, the relationship between her and Share was an odd one. I won't go overboard with the details, but let's just say as Andrea was the catalyst for Grace becoming down in the dumps, Share is the one who has Grace do a 180. Thus beginning a coming of age type of story which has one major issue: The transition from the Grace that Andrea knew to the one Share had an influence on isn't smooth. It, to me, was like a light switch type of change.Overall: Mixed (Home Viewing)If this was a show, I would loyally watch it. You can see potential in each character and Destiny has good chemistry with her fellow actors. Unfortunately, though, this is a movie. One which has too much fat as we watch Lisa try to get food stamps, we watch Share get a job, take care of her grandma or have boy trouble. Leaving you feeling that all that time wasted could have been used to help smooth out Grace's transition from girl to discovering herself as a woman. It could have been used to flesh out Andrea, or even Lisa and Share's past. Yet, the film didn't. Leaving you wanting more and disappointed. Especially since Black girl coming of age movies are rare.