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Natasha Lyonne (American Pie, But I’m a Cheerleader) leads an esteemed ensemble cast in writer/director Tamara Jenkins’ story of a 1970s teenager coming of age on the outskirts of Beverly Hills. The family is struggling to make ends meet, always moving out of apartments before the rent is due. Alan Arkin plays the father, a divorcee with a gambling problem. David Krumholtz plays Lyonne’s older pot-smoking brother, and Marisa Tomei plays the cousin with a drug problem. Rita Moreno and comic legend Carl Reiner show up in judgmental cameos at the end.

I’m not usually a fan of movies that feature characters who can’t escape their own self-induced crises. But that’s not true of Natasha Lyonne’s character, and she’s the glue that holds this story together. She is haunted by the notion that everything about herself and her family is freakish and unnatural. She starts the movie as a woman-child embarrassed and restrained by her insecurities, and ends the film in a more secure place — accepting of her family’s limitations, and possibly ready to become a more mature adult than the rest of them.

The scenes that resonated with me the most are ones in which Lyonne’s character is forced to reckon with the cruel realities of womanhood, including being measured for her first bra and a menstral accident on an embroidered seat cushion. Those things alone would have me throwing in the towel, long before the kooky family characters ever came into the picture. Look for Lyonne’s future American Pie co-star Mena Suvari in a small role.