In the genre of coming-of-age stories, there are three Mexican and Mexican American films that stand out: Alfonso Cuarón’s Y Tu Mama Tambien, a gritty take on a road trip between two teen boys and a woman 10 years their senior who is battling cancer. America Ferrera’s breakout role in Real Women Have Curves, which depicts a strained mother-daughter relationship in East Los Angeles. And more recently, Mosquita y Mari, a sweet, understated movie portraying the love between two young girls that starts to turn into something more.
These movies follow the well-known formula of most coming-of-age narratives. They’re all about young people who want more from their lives, who feel trapped inside their current situations, and who aren’t ready to sacrifice whatever their idea of adulthood and adventure might be.
But in recent years, a new subgenre of coming-of-age narratives has emerged and Latinas are already getting left behind. The latest in the canon of “late bloomer” stories is the film, Am I OK?, starring Dakota Johnson as Lucy, a 32-year-old woman who by her own admission is “scared of everything.” The emotional center of the movie is the intimate friendship between Lucy and her best friend Jane. Where Jane is more independent and sure of herself, Lucy is codependent and confused about who she is.
But when Jane gets a promotion that forces her to move to London, Lucy breaks down and admits to both her friend and herself that she’s attracted to women. Before Jane leaves Los Angeles, she vows to help Lucy finally kiss a woman.
That’s interrupted when they get into a fight and stop speaking. Lucy is lost and truly alone for what seems like the first time in her life. In that empty space, she finds herself once again, but also for the first time. She starts painting again. She signs up for a dating app and starts meeting women. Though she misses her friend, she begins to understand what a life without Jane might look like.
Late bloomer, coming-of-age stories often follow a similar protagonist: adults, usually over 30, who are complacent yet unsatisfied with their lives. They’ve typically given up dreams of an artistic career (painters, dancers, and writers) and settled into a job that pays the bills.
They’re okay with this settling until something happens that forces them to confront all the ways in which they’ve failed themselves. From there, these movies show us the journey they take back to themselves and their dreams.
So many of the movies in this subgenre hinge on the protagonist taking a big risk. For Lucy, it’s coming out and accepting a life without her best friend by her side. Greta Gerwig’s Frances Ha is also about how a close female friendship can splinter with age, following Frances as she doubles down on her career as a dancer and choreographs her first solo show. In Under the Tuscan Sun, Diane Lane’s character buys a rundown villa to renovate as she recovers from a divorce.
Looking at the panorama of late bloomer stories, especially those about women, one could think that Latinas never take risks, never flounder, never face the uncertainties of growing up. But more than ever, Latinas are breaking away from longstanding cultural norms that center family and children.
We’re more likely to open and own businesses than non-Hispanic women in the U.S. In 2023, we were 43 percent more likely to have a bachelor’s degree than in 2013. All while facing the same pressures that generations before us have felt.
Longtime TV writer Lauren Pomerantz wrote the script for Am I OK? based on her own experience coming out to her best friend in her 30s. One of the messages she wanted audiences to take from her movie is that “there is no timeline and there should be no timeline” for life’s many milestones. Even though Lucy has a strong support system, she, like Pomerantz, wasn’t ready to share her truth until that moment when she’s in bed with Jane.
As I watched, I found myself thinking about my own recent struggles and the richness of Latinas’ experiences. Looking around for stories from Latin America, a few stood out: De Lo Mio, which follows two Dominican sisters who return to the DR to pack up their deceased grandparents’ home and reunite with their brother. The comedy-musical from Maria Paz Gonzalez, Lina from Lima about a housekeeper in Chile who is trying to go back to Peru to visit her son for the holidays. And from Costa Rica, The Awakening of the Ants which tells the story of a mother of two who is facing pressure from her husband to have a third child.
Though they may not fall squarely in the “late bloomer” genre, these movies are a reminder that the experiences of Latinas are worth sharing. There’s no timeline for Latinas either and it’s time for Hollywood to tell our side of the story.
