Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #96: Norman (2010).

High school senior Norman Long (Dan Byrd) is basically having a premature quarter-life crisis. Beyond being practically invisible at school, particularly with the girls, he's already overcoming the hurt from his mother Marie's death when his father Doug (Richard Jenkins) contracts terminal cancer. It's totally understandable, then, that he's developed a very twisted, cynical sense of humour. Pretty soon, his social standing school improves, but for a pretty awful reason. While trying to express the cause of his stress to classmate James (Bradley Cooper doppelganger Billy Lush), Norman has a communication breakdown and says he's the dying one. Naturally this fake news now spreads around school like the flu, and girls show a newfound interest in him and bullies try to make amends for past misdeeds. But Norman instead falls for a new girl in his drama class, Emily Parrish (Emily Van Camp), who dismantles all his barriers. Now, with help from Emily and his English teacher Mr. Angelo (Adam Goldberg), Norman must set the record straight.

Norman, I think, is easily one of the best and freshest coming-of-age flicks in recent years. Working from Talton Wingate's understated screenplay, Jonathan Segal invokes an appropriately homely visual language to flesh the essence of its character dynamics right out: Norman and Doug, Norman and Emily and school Norman and home Norman. It's a wise technique that achieves a very sincere and dignified result, and enhancing this is Andrew Bird's score and Darren Genet's photography.

And anchoring it are four solid central performances. Dan Byrd (who you might know from Heroes, Cougar Town and as Emma Stone's gay "boyfriend"in Easy A) gives his finest, hardest turn to date as this boy whose passage into adulthood is proving hardly auspicious; he makes every emotion seem authentic, particularly as the film approaches its emotional climax. Van Camp takes what could've been just another passive, sickly-sweet girlfriend role and brings true backbone to her, Jenkins's quiet and weathered authority has seldom been employed better and also in a fairly trope-ish role, Goldberg is well-balanced.

It falls short of many similar earlier flicks, but Norman stands out because it dares to aim for the big emotional gut-punches, and knows how they should be thrown. Subsequently, I ultimately find it also quite thought-provoking. These questions may be unpleasant or unpopular, but illness and death in one's family can change us irrevocably, especially if they strike suddenly and while we're growing up. Norman offers a beautifully delicate look into navigating that precarious terrain.