5 Girls

When adults speak about their adolescence they always mention the growing pains they experienced throughout that period of their lives. Whether it be parental pressures or trying to find who you are in a world where adolescents are given mixed messages by everyone around them, it seems as though every adolescent has been faced with obstacles they need to overcome. The ways in which adolescents deal with these barricades that are placed in front of them, are what help shape their character for the future. However, their actions and beliefs towards these obstacles are heavily influenced by their environment and the people around them. These factors need to be considered in analyzing the adolescent, in order to understand the adolescent's reactions, choices, outcome, and development. These various aspects of an adolescent girl's life were greatly portrayed in Maria Finitzo's movie, "Five Girls." Two of the girls, Haibinh and Toby, experienced similar struggles in regards to the same developmental processes and contexts. However, the differences lied in the way in which each context affected their developmental process. It is interesting to see that adolescents can face the same struggles yet; they experience them in very different ways.

Throughout the course of the movie, the viewer could see that Toby struggled greatly to gain autonomy from her parents. She found it hard to separate the life she wanted to live from the life her parents wanted her to live. Toby found herself having to achieve emotional, behavioral, and value autonomy during the years that Maria Finitzo recorded her.