Big Girls Don't Cry (review)

It's shocking what kids get up to these days: the drugs, the blow jobs, the wandering of lonely nighttime streets in the throes of adolescent angst. Yes, this German coming-of-age drama delivers stunning performances from its young stars, and director Maria von Heland is a talented visualist, but this box, however grim-prettily wrapped, is empty. We may not have previously met bestest friends Kati (Anna Maria Muhe), breaking free of the influence of her strict, religious parents, and Steffi (Karoline Herfurth), who could give her wild parents a lesson or two in morality, but we've met too many like them before to be surprised or moved by their lives, a tiresome melange of teen depression, teen sex, teen crime, and teen friendship amidst it all. Yawn. Extras include cast interviews, deleted scenes, and a making-of featurette.