An immigrant child in a new school battling hormones and her mother's Senegalese traditions tries so hard to fit in she breaks.

_Cuties_ / _Mignonnes_ is everything but cute. It's rough, hard, brutal, tragic and very real. Director Maïmouna Doucouré paints the gut wrenching portrait of the young lady and the clique she's dying to enter with sensitivity, soul and a touch of magical realism that mark the reader like a dark tattoo.

Amy is a complex character (terrifically written by Doucouré and played to a T by Fathia Youssouf) because in the same instant she elicits our sympathy, our anger and our disgust. She makes all the wrong decisions for all the right reasons and because for an 11-year-old on the threshold of puberty, there is only right now and desires that blind them from seeing any consequences of their actions.

As for the ridiculous controversy launched by those who haven't seen the film and fueled by blind ignorance: I find it interesting that people will criticize a female woman of color for directing a film based on her personal experiences, whereas when Woody Allen makes a film about young women throwing themselves at older men, he's hailed as a genius.

Shame on those who shame someone for trying to tell their story. Cinema is meant to be a stage for sharing, not an arena for executing artists we judge despite knowing nothing about them or their art.

I think people should watch the movie before judging... I just watched Cuties and sorry it isn't that bad at all.
Maybe it's because I'm from the Netherlands and we are very open.


When I was 11/12 there were girls just like this. And me and my friends would talk about boys too, it's a normal thing.
We would talk about sex and dress up sexy, but when a guy showed interest it was like ewwww... We were all just exploring and growing up.


When I see kids street dance now they do danced just like this and they learn it also from people like Nicki Minaj or Rihanna or who ever. Kids look up to those kind of celebrities can you blame them? This is the reality.

In Cuties you see children who have a bad connection with their parents and wear certain things behind their back. I see a bunch of innocent kids that aren't aware and are growing up. If I had children I wouldn't allow them to wear that but you don't always know what they do behind your back. The school should have said something about it too.

I feel people are taking this movie out of context and are over reacting.
They movie wasn't sexualizing children, that wasn't the meaning of the movie at all.

So, I didn't actually have a desire to watch this movie, as “coming of age” movies aren't my thing. But with all the strong controversy directed towards it, I wanted to see what’s all the fuss is about. I get the message of the movie, we all get it (I hope), but I just can’t understand why the creators needed so many constant close ups of pre-teen girls sexually dancing and touching each other. Just why? The message was already loud and clear, why film them this way?

If you removed all of the hyper-sexualized scenes (basically 3/4s of the movie), _Cuties_ is very poorly written and directed. It feels like a Disney Channel movie with all the cringy dialogue. Mediocre cinematography and child acting, and the screenplay is meh. I honestly cannot believe people are watching this and giving it 5 stars. I suspect these people force them to like it because the main character and director are black.

I felt nothing for any of the characters. The main group of girls are highly annoying young girls with no personality or desires. I didn't care seeing the protagonist cry, I didn’t care that she was falling into a hole of depravity. In fact I was more interested in the mom's storyline than the main girl's story.

_Cuties_ is just not good. It's dull with irritating kids and there is not much happening. I couldn't even finish watching it. This is not a pro-child-sexualization film, but it shows that sexualization in pretty graphic detail, and to me it felt the equivalent of posting child pornography and claiming that you’re somehow raising awareness.

In essence, this is a coming of age film, and a beautiful one at that. Yes, Netflix's marketing was atrocious and a creative choice was made that is obviously very problematic: it explores the topic of the sexualization of children through imitation, by sexualizing children.

That doesn't make it a bad movie and it doesn't make it pedo-friendly either. It makes it disturbing and unsettling, as it should be. Yes, it is UNCOMFORTABLE to see these kids acting the way they do, but that's the point. The hyper-sexualization of children is happening like this, all the time, everywhere.

I understand the concern. I understand why people are worried about pedophiles. *But the fact that children are being overly sexual in this film is not for the sake or pleasure of pedophiles.* That's not at all the point of the story, and some people are missing that.

Some scenes are highly inappropriate indeed, but that's because *the reality of the sexualization of children is inappropriate.* How else is it supposed to look like?

This movie is not the pedophilic propaganda people are making it out to be. Especially not when you put it in the context of reality and what Doucouré wanted to accomplish. Could she have done it without those scenes? Sure. But we don't get to decide how people tell their stories.

The girls are fantastic in their performance and the film does a great job not just at exploring how ugly the sexualization of children is, but also at exploring the loss of innocence, which happens at such an early age nowadays, the search for autonomy, independence, and identity, the inner struggle between who you are and who your parents/religion/friends/society/culture want you to be.

It explores all the classic coming of age topics and it does it effectively.

If you have this any higher than a 1/10 you are a criminal & the F.B.I will be coming for you shortly.