20th Century Girl (2022)

This South Korean film builds a tender and melancholic portrait of first adolescent love, set in the final days of the 20th century. Director Bang Woo-ri opts for unadorned nostalgia: the camera patiently follows the rituals of adolescent female friendship and the discovery of romantic affection. The central plot — a girl investigating the boy her friend likes — serves as a vehicle to explore loyalty, sacrifice, and the innocence of those who love for the first time. The screenplay avoids the vulgarity and cynical irony that often contaminates Western adolescent cinema: these characters feel with intensity but act with modesty. The film reaches its greatest height in its treatment of the friendship between the two protagonists, presented as a bond of genuine self-giving, not of superficial complicity. The overall tone is bittersweet: it celebrates the beauty of first love but acknowledges its fragility. For parents, it is an appropriate work for adolescents who already possess a certain emotional maturity, given the weight of the outcome. Without explicit sexual content or an ideological agenda, the film trusts that the viewer can be moved by what is simple and true.