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Bellyfruit

1999, Movie, NR, 87 mins

Bellyfruit: Review

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Child actress-turned-filmmaker Kerri Lee Green's directing debut, an clear-eyed look at teenage pregnancy, was adapted from a play developed in a Los Angeles workshop for young mothers. Its three narrative threads all involve young girls facing adult decisions before they've left their own childhoods behind. Shanika (Tamara LaSeon Bass), 14, and her sister have been removed from their drug-addicted mother's custody, but while Shanika's sister adapts to foster care, Shanika's defiance alienates one family after another. She finally winds up at a shelter for troubled teenage girls, and being seperated from her entire family leaves her vulnerable to the blandishments of Damon (T.E. Russell), whose sweet talk is nothing more than a cynical ploy to get her into bed. Thirteen-year-old Christina (Kelly Vint) is herself the child of a teenage mother, Diane (producer Bonnie Dickenson); now that Christina is old enough to be left alone, Diane is enjoying the freedom she missed the first time around. Christina gets pregnant at a party and doesn't start thinking about an abortion until she's already six months along, leaving her 29-year-old mother facing the prospect of being a mother and a grandmother at the same time. Aracely (Tonatzin Mondragon), 16, is kicked out of the house after she becomes pregnant by her boyfriend, Oscar (Michael Pena). She and Oscar find their own apartment, but making ends meet is a constant struggle while Aracely is pregnant, and after the baby is born Oscar is tempted to start dealing drugs so he can support his fledgling family. Green and co-writers Maria Bernhard, Susannah Blinkoff and Janet Borrus neither pass judgment on their characters nor wrap up their stories with melodramatic contrivances. Vint, Bass and Mondragon all deliver lovely, convincing performances as young girls coping with the life altering consequences of decisions they hardly realized they were making. leave a comment
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