Cocoon

Sweetly poignant in its observations of teen life and shot with an artful eye by writer/director Leonie Krippendorff (Looping), Cocoon offers a dreamy spin on the coming-of-age gay drama. Set in Berlin in the summer of 2018, the film follows 14-year-old Nora (Lena Urzendowsky) as she drifts in the wake of her older, party-animal sister. Often ignored or the subject of mean-spirited larks, Nora is frail, intelligent and misunderstood. All of that changes, though, when she encounters the alluring Romy (Jella Haase), and new feelings stir. An elegant slow burn, Cocoon wears its love of queer cinema on its sleeve. Echoes of Canadian auteur Xavier Dolan abound in the film's synth soundtrack and playful use of aspect ratios, while, tonally, Cocoon references Lukas Moodysson's Show Me Love and Céline Sciamma's Water Lilies. Despite these influences, however, Krippendorff's film emerges as its own uniquely tender thing: a depiction of sexual awakening that beautifully captures the moment when adolescence tips into adulthood.