An intoxicating, delicate coming-of-age tale in ‘The Starling Girl’

Laurel Parmet’s directorial debut “ The Starling Girl ” puts the viewer in the modest shoes of a 17-year-old girl named Jem. She’s grown up in a Christian fundamentalist community in Kentucky and has internalized its teachings, feeling deep shame for drawing attention to herself and her body, which as an artistically-inclined member of the dance troupe is especially difficult to avoid.

But her world starts to change when Owen, a handsome 28-year-old youth leader played by Lewis Pullman, returns from a mission in Puerto Rico. Jem, played by Australian actor Eliza Scanlen, develops an intense infatuation with him that soon evolves into something more.

It’s a film about many things — family, patriarchal societies, toxic relationships, power dynamics, first loves and, ultimately, growing up — but it’s neither outwardly judgmental nor blunt. “The Starling Girl,” currently playing in New York and Los Angeles and expanding to other cities this weekend, is done with a delicate touch.

“(Jem) is a very complex character and I think quite different from other portrayals of young women in communities like this,” Scanlen said. “What makes this film stand out is it’s not making any kind of definitive statement about the church or fundamentalist communities. It’s actually trying to humanize the people who live in them.”

The story comes from Parmet, who while in Oklahoma for another project got to know some woman in a patriarchal Christian community. Though she grew up worlds apart, as a child of parents who work in movies and television (a cinematographer and a costumer), she realized that they had commonalities too — from feelings of sexual shame to the need for validation from men.

The film touches on these ideas and also draws from her own experience of having a relationship with an older man when she was a teenager. And, because it’s told from Jem’s point of view, the journey is a bit of a rollercoaster for the audience who may even find themselves emotionally wrapped up in Jem and Owen’s romance, despite knowing that it is fundamentally wrong.

“Something that I was trying to do with this film is have the audience be with the main character moment to moment,” said Parmet. “You are with her every step of the way. You feel her intoxication, you feel this vivid opening up that she’s experiencing while at the same time conveying that this relationship is problematic.”

Parmet drew visual and tonal inspiration from Pawel…