Adullam
2020 · 14m · United States
Directed by Regina Hoyles
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, LGBTQ+
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
A young Chicago woman keeps a well-kept secret while enjoying a typical day in the south suburbs, coming to terms with whether who she is will ever truly be accepted.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A tender LGBTQ+ coming-of-age that plays the emotional beats straight — which is exactly why it doesn't need to; the restraint itself becomes the subversion, the quiet refusal to dramatize what should never have needed drama in the first place.
Hoyles situates herself in a lineage of lyrical American realism—Reichardt, perhaps—where the south suburbs become a canvas for interior reckoning rendered through precise observation and unhurried pacing.
The film's power lives in a single sustained choice: the decision to keep the camera intimate and still while the world outside moves at its own pace, letting the gap between internal certainty and external acceptance breathe without ever naming it.