Chemical Hearts review - turn off the sound

★★ CHEMICAL HEARTS Traumatic teen romance story looks good but lands with a thud

Story of traumatic teen romance looks good but lands with a thud

Musings on the agonies of adolescent love fall like dead weight in this wearying if well-acted adaptation by writer-director Richard Tanne of the 2016 Young Adult novel Our Chemical Hearts by Krystal Sutherland. 17-year-old Henry Page (Austin Abrams) falls hard for Grace Torn (Lili Reinhart, from TV's Riverdale), the indrawn new transfer student at his New Jersey high school who walks with a cane and speaks of needing her sins erased.

Babyteeth review - teenage love and terminal illness in the Sydney suburbs

★★★★ BABYTEETH Teenage love and terminal illness in the Sydney suburbs

Shannon Murphy's debut feature is packed with charismatic performances

Babyteeth gets off to a terrific start. A semi-naked, manic Moses (Toby Wallace, full of scabby charisma) almost pushes 15-year-old Milla (Eliza Scanlen; Sharp Objects, Little Women) on to the Sydney train tracks as she waits on the platform in her school uniform, carrying her violin. It’s a thunderclap: she’s smitten.

Piranhas review - riding with the teenage gangs of Naples

★★★ PIRANHAS Riding with the teenage gangs of Naples

Adaptation of Roberto Saviano novel explores crime as a hereditary condition

Roberto Saviano’s book Gomorrah shone a blinding light on the Camorra crime clans of Naples, and spun off an acclaimed film and equally admired TV series.

The Day After I'm Gone review - a subtle portrayal of a grieving father and his teenage daughter

★★★★ THE DAY AFTER I'M GONE A subtle portrayal of a grieving father and his teenage daughter

An impressive debut feature from Israeli director Nimrod Eldar

Yoram (Menashe Noy), a vet in a Tel Aviv safari park, knows how to treat a sick jaguar (startling to see such a magnificent beast in an oxygen mask) but he has no idea how to comfort his troubled 17-year-old daughter Roni (a powerful Zohar Meidan). Both are mourning the death of Roni’s mother a year ago, but all they can offer each other is a tortured silence.

Banana Split review - likable if essentially timid romcom

On-the-shelf romcom deserves both a proper airing - and an epilogue

Is friendship mightier and more durable than sex? That's the proposition put forward by the engaging if ultimately cautious Banana Split, the Los Angeles-set romcom in which two teenagers become friends unbeknownst to the long-haired himbo boyfriend whom they have shared.

Album: Ezra Furman - Sex Education OST

Furman lays out tunes of teenage awkwardness while keeping cliché at bay

Netflix’s sweet but slightly strange drama Sex Education is already two series into its tale of teenage awkwardness in the face of growing up, with a third planned for when the Covid-19 plague is over. Yet it is only now that the soundtrack is being unleashed on the record-buying public.