Mangoshake (2018)

Mangoshake is not about endearing outsiders just trying to connect. It's about the hypocrisy and entitlement that lies underneath the coming of age ideas and tropes our culture has toxically ingrained into our expectations. The characters in this story represent the very archetypes that have continuously let us down with misguided hope. So when they're punished because of their damage-the damage on themselves and to each other-the intention is a resonance more disillusioned than the genre's classic submission into naïve longing, conceptualized romantic delusions, contrived scenarios of victory, and vain, good-looking tristesse. But although these characters aren't necessarily sympathetic, they have to be compelling, because they reflect us, and these characters have to communicate what we've been doing wrong, be it through heightened absurdity or grounded moments of these characters just existing. Because we grew up believing in these archetypes, we need to be exposed to their truth, and we should welcome the rupture. This is technically a coming of age movie, but it's an end to what the genre has taken for granted, hence hopefully the destruction of coming of age.