Another director might have emphasized the erotic dimension of this forbidden attraction between a young churchgoer and her religious instructor, between a minor and her ostensibly more mature first love, à la “The Thorn Birds” or “Call Me by Your Name,” but Parmet strikes a more nuanced tone. Owen is married with a pregnant wife, but he finds Jem irresistible. It’s not long before they’re making out and more. “The Starling Girl” is rigorously realistic, without fantasies or flashbacks, but on one point, there can be little doubt: After dance practice one afternoon, she deflates the tire on her bicycle so Owen will be obliged to give her a ride. Jem imagines the two of them running off together, and starts looking for ways to get his attention. Owen has just come back from Puerto Rico, which makes him relatively worldly in her eyes, a symbol of the possibilities beyond this “Handmaid’s Tale” community of homemade dresses and honor-thy-husband dynamics. The script doesn’t explicitly state what Jem sees in Owen, though it’s not hard to guess: Long-haired and handsome, he’s a bit of a rebel, but also devout - traits he shares with Jem’s father, who was a member of a Christian rock band during his wilder days. But this moment doubles as a reminder of Jem’s newfound power, which she puts to the test when Ben’s older brother Owen (Pullman) returns from a mission trip. Suddenly self-conscious, Jem appears to shrink into herself, like Eve in the Garden of Eden, discovering the shame of her own body. Jem’s brassiere was visible through her blouse, she says, and such things pose an inappropriate distraction for the men during worship. In an early scene, Ben’s mother approaches Jem after the dance performance she’s given in church and expresses her concern. But young women like Jem don’t get much of a say in the patriarchal Christian society in which they’re raised. Jem dutifully honors her father (Jimmi Simpson) and mother (Wrenn Schmidt), but her parents are pressuring her to court a pimple-faced fellow parishioner named Ben (Austin Abrams) - seemingly the last person she’d want as a husband.
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