Set Me Free

Aside from the effectiveness of Set Me Free as a coming-of-age story, it's also one of the most poetic avowals of love for movies that I've seen in years.

Propelled by a captivating, wrenching performance by Karine Vanasse as Hanna, a 13-year-old girl adrift in a sea of powerful emotions in Montreal in 1963.

Blessedly free of candy-box prettiness, cloying gentility, and anything else that might dishonor its deeply felt, sensitively observed memoir.

Tells its story so effectively through pictures it's barely necessary to read the subtitles.

Stands apart from the trite conventions of most coming-of-age drama chiefly through the originality of Pool's approach and the honesty and conviction of Karine Vanasse's portrait of Hanna.

Spare and quietly heartbreaking, this French-Canadian feature uses a fine brush to depict a teenage girl in the midst of a quiet crisis.

A slice of life that adds up to exactly the sum of its parts, no more, no less.