"Kris Swanberg's Sundance film is the kind of gentle, goodhearted drama that relies entirely on its performances, and both the film's main stars rise to the occasion. Perhaps inevitably, the viewpoint most favored is that of Cobie Smulders' science teacher, a white woman in a predominantly black school, so it's a mark of just how good relative newcomer Gail Bean is as her most promising senior-year student, that the resulting story feels much more evenly balanced. When Smulders' Samantha discovers she's pregnant around the same time that Bean's Jasmine does too, the teacher/student relationship evolves into something different as the women, their partners and their families respond in illuminatingly different ways. Samantha is in many ways the best possible version of the decent, liberal but unavoidably white, middle class woman, and a patient, inspirational teacher too, but it is Jasmine who, by being so completely herself makes the film's most important point: no matter how good your intentions, "rescue" is not ever really yours to give. Throughout, Bean is almost incandescent with utterly winning self-confidence, so much so that despite the disparity in age, experience, social class and of course race, it's always difficult to work out who exactly is supporting whom."

via Indiewire

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/best-of-2015-the-20-best-breakthrough-performances-of-the-year-20151202