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All grown up

Writer-director Rebecca Thomas picks five great coming-of-age movies

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Published: Sun 17 Mar 2013, 7:20 PM

Last updated: Fri 3 Apr 2015, 7:50 AM

A 15-year-old girl from a fundamentalist Mormon family hears rock music for the first time and miraculously finds she’s pregnant in Electrick Children, the debut feature from writer-director Rebecca Thomas.

It sounds like a fantastical premise — and Thomas’ film is filled with beautifully ethereal, dreamlike imagery — but it’s also a universally relatable coming-of-age story. Sheltered Rachel (played with a lovely innocence by Julia Garner) flees her Utah compound and drives to Las Vegas, hoping to find the man whose voice on a cassette tape moved her so profoundly. And while she’s exposed to a whole new world when she falls in with some musicians and street kids, she never loses her inherent sweetness.

Thomas herself was nice enough to choose five of her favourite coming-of-age movies. Here she is, in her own words:


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