At Sundance this year there were 14 films by women about growing up. The only one that got a lot of attention was the documentary Girls Like Us, which won the Grand Jury Prize for best documentary. This film is about four working class girls in South Philly — filmmakers Jane C. Wagner (above right) and Tina DiFeliciantonio (above left) followed them with a hand-held camera for four years, from ages 14 to 18. I'd heard the film was amazing, and when I finally saw it, I wanted to cry. Watching Girls Like Us is not so much a film experience as it is a scary life lesson. And the lesson is this: Inner city girls are lost and struggling, and people don't care.
— Sarah Jacobson

The four girls: Anna, a first-generation Vietnamese girl whose parents won't let her date. Lisa, a feisty Italian Catholic school girl who's never missed a day of school. De'yona, a talented black girl who goes to a performing arts school and wants to become a singer. Raelene, a white girl who got pregnant at age 14 and dropped out of school at 15.

The girls don't know much about sex, and what little they do know becomes their biggest trap.

Anna's father calls girls with boyfriends "sluts" and refuses to let her date, even though her brother doesn't have such restrictions. By her senior year, Anna is having sex without protection with a secret boyfriend, but cries at night from the guilt.

Lisa and her friends talk a lot about sex, but we never know if she's having it with her boyfriend, whom she started dating when he was 16 and she was 12.

De'yona starts off swearing she'll never have kids, that she has enough siblings and cousins to take care of. Her grandmother teaches her all about the pill and condoms, but by her senior year she is pregnant.

Raelene, the girl you'd think would know the most about sex from having a kid at 14, is just as clueless as the rest of them. She confesses with her girlfriend that not only have they never had an orgasm, they don't even know what one is.

I was so saddened by the way all the girls talk about sex with their girlfriends. They never talk about what they like, unless it's how sex without a condom is better than sex with a condom. They never talk about what feels good or what they've learned with a certain guy. Lisa's friends discuss how unrealistic it is for parents to tell their daughters not to have sex: "If they were really looking out for our best interest, they'd be teaching us stuff." In one raw scene, Raelene talks about how she had vaginal dryness with the father of her child, and how they always needed to buy KY jelly. She is asked why she had sex if she didn't enjoy it. "I don't know," she replied. He was her first; she didn't know what was normal. It's such a brutal way to talk about sex, like it's plumbing or something.

But it's no wonder the sex is bad when you see how these girls' are treated by their boyfriends. They get no respect and they put up with consistently abusive behavior. Whenever Lisa or Raelene are interviewed with their boyfriends, the guys do all the talking, telling the camera what the women want to do. Lisa says her first boyfriend would hang up the phone while she was in the middle of talking to him. She eventually left him after four years because he cheated on her and told her who her friends should be. At least she finally left. Raelene's boyfriend called her a whore, a slut, and a pig because she had slept with other men before they met — even though he had slept with other women. Her current boyfriend insists they don't use protection during sex so they can have a kid of their own. There's Raelene, nodding her head, agreeing with everything.
Eventually, Raelene does get pregnant again, but not by the bonehead we've seen earlier

Eventually, Raelene does get pregnant again, but not by the bonehead we've seen earlier. When she finds out at the clinic, the first thing she says is, "Now I gotta go home and hear my mom and dad again! They're gonna tell me to get rid of it. And I'm not doing it!" If she's two to four weeks pregnant, it's Tommy's. If it's more than six weeks along, her ex-boyfriend Gabe (who's black) is the father. Her parents don't mind her dating a black guy, but they don't want her to have a kid who's half-black, half-white. Raelene doesn't understand why. Her girlfriends tell her she should have an abortion. She insists that she can go out and work and make money. She'll just put the child in day-care and it will all be okay. Next shot is of her smoking a cigarette saying that smoking isn't bad for the baby, because she doesn't smoke crack and her friend did everything right and healthy and her baby died.

The problem is that these girls' role models are shaky at best: The parents are just as screwed up as the kids, and teachers are never mentioned. Lisa, Raelene, and De'yona were all born before their mothers turned 16. Lisa's mom was married and divorced three times, and Raelene and De'yona both know about their mothers' heavy drug use — De'yona says her mother is so screwed up on drugs she can't take care of her own children. De'yona lives with her grandmother but says something is missing without a mother. Her grandmother has been in the hospital twice for heart problems — for all her love and support, she could be gone in an instant, and De'yona would be alone.
She flunks out of school, gets pregnant, and works full-time at Kentucky Fried Chicken

De'yona did have a friend and role model in her older cousin Man-Man. He took her to the prom when she decided her boyfriend was too flaky. Then Man-Man is shot and killed. Her depression hits hard. She flunks out of school, gets pregnant, and works full-time at Kentucky Fried Chicken. Instead of dreaming about being a singer, she dreams about going to hotel management school.

We often hear about the young black male casualties of high crime rates, but the women in their lives are barely mentioned. If they are, it's as a cinematic plot device to arouse sympathy. But the footage of De'yona after Man-Man is killed allows us to see her grief and the very real change in her demeanor — a spark is missing from her personality. Man-Man's murder ruins her high school years. You hope with all your heart she can pull herself back up, but there's nothing to hang that hope on.

Anna's parents are so strict there's no room for communication or support. She sees one of her close friends abused by her dad and finally thrown out of the house for carving a boy's name into her arm. A few months later the girl disappears and is never heard from again. When Anna talks about having unprotected sex with her boyfriend, she says he told her he would pay for the abortion. She doesn't believe in abortion, but she couldn't keep a child because it would interfere with her career and her parents would throw her out of the house. It's obvious she can't ask her parents any questions about boys or dating or sex.

Lisa is the only one with a semblance of a role model — her mom is very insistent that Lisa go to college. She says if you get pregnant you can't rely on a man to take care of you — at least with a degree you can get a good job. Lisa wants to marry her boyfriend and not go to school. She says that if her mom wasn't insisting so much, she wouldn't go to college. It's such a relief to see her mom work so hard to instill Lisa with a sense of self.
But then you watch Raelene's life unfold, and it's like a horror film

But then you watch Raelene's life unfold, and it's like a horror film — not necessarily because it's so awful to be a teenage mother, but because Raelene seems so alone, so lost. No one looks out for her, no one teaches her about raising kids or living life or dealing with men. She's learning it on her own and all you can do is cross your fingers that her life isn't going to spin out of her control.

By the end of the film, Raelene's happily married with lots of kids and a boyfriend who doesn't beat her or call her names. She says she wouldn't change anything. Her mother moved up to the Poconos and kicked drugs, which had a lot to do with Raelene's new self-esteem. She dropped out of school because her mother didn't care about her going, so why should she? I wondered what she could have done if there'd been anyone to support her while she was growing up.

When I watch this documentary, I watch with my eyes, the eyes of a girl who's trying to be a filmmaker in a world where men don't listen to women. I learn so much by watching other people. I need real-life role models to show me what is possible. I can't just make something up in my head and follow it; I need concrete help. I have a ton of support from my mom. She lives with me. She's my co-producer on the film. I have access to other filmmakers for advice. And it's still incredibly hard to conjure the confidence and strength to follow my dreams. When I see Anna, Lisa, De'yona, and Raelene on screen and see them trying to figure it all out on their own, I wonder if anything that I'm doing will ever reach these girls. I wonder if anyone is doing anything that speaks to them, that relates to their lives. It's hard enough for me to find images and role models I can relate to, even with my college background and family support. Who's going to help these girls?

Even if they all know that girls should go out and have careers — that they should use protection during sex so their best years aren't spent child rearing — they don't know anyone who actually lives that way. How can you live a life you've only read about or seen on TV? How do you make these concepts of self-respect and confidence more than abstract ideas?

The film doesn't end sadly. Anna stops dating and goes to Boston University, where she majors in English. Lisa breaks up with her boyfriend and goes to college, where she maintains her perfect attendance record. Raelene seems content with family life up in the Poconos, and De'yona still sings with her church choir. But something about the film left me really, really sad. It's a glimpse into a world not enough people care about to show you. Directors Jane C. Wagner and Tina DiFeliciantonio worked their asses off to give us this glimpse. I hope one day they can do a sequel that will show us things are getting better for girls like them.