Dare

Dare does quite accurately depict young adults going through a transformative and confusing teenage as they're trying to navigate their sexual identities. Emmy Rossum and Zach Gilford truly gave the boost this film needed. Especially Zach, who carried the emotions his character was going through in a constraint way, yet could also feel self-destructive at times. Do not expect too much going into it, as you can enjoy and understand this film and its characters fully without knowing much about it.

It tries hard to be a "coming of age" movie, but in deciding to focus on sexuality as the sole issue for three teens it simplifies and degrades itself into a one trick pony i.e.message) short story. Alan Cumming has a juicy, if self righteously preachy, role as the "messenger" but the message is rather sophomoric, as is the film. Zach is his usual persona: overtly complex, but basically angst ridden. The character of Ben is ridiculously shallow; a gay teen not just coming out but spewing out. The parents are all shallow characters, as they always seem to be in these teen "who are we?" movies. It's mostly pretentious drivel chock full of quasi intellectual writing.