'The Miseducation of Cameron Post' is an inspiring movie that won Sundance, and it's our indie pick of the weekend

Sundance Institute

"The Miseducation of Cameron Post."

• "The Miseducation of Cameron Post" won the grand jury prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival.
• Actress Chloë Grace Moretz gives the best performance of her career, so far.

The winner of the grand jury prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival, "The Miseducation of Cameron Post," is a stirring look at sexuality and acceptance that is beautifully executed by director Desiree Akhavan ("Appropriate Behavior") and headed by Chloë Grace Moretz, who gives the best performance so far in her young career.

Based on the novel by Emily M. Danforth, Moretz plays Cameron - Cam for short - who is growing up in early 1990s Montana with her paternal grandmother after her parents die in a car crash. As she tries to cope with the loss of her parents she's also discovering that she's homosexual. At the start of the movie, she's outed and her grandmother brings her to God's Promise, a camp that does "conversion therapy."

Akhavan structures the story similar to movies like "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" or "Girl, Interrupted" as we follow Cam into this foreign new normal. Surrounded by males and females all there with the hopes (at least on the surface) of "getting better," they go through daily exercises and talks with therapists in the process of being "re-educated." But as much as Cam and others try, they can't fight who they are. And she quickly learns that she's not the only one who realizes all they are doing is playing along.

Filled with powerfully dramatic moments and Moretz showing a range she hasn't been able to in a lot of her previous work, "Cameron Post" is a coming-of-age movie that is essential viewing, regardless if you are gay or straight.

See where "The Miseducation of Cameron Post" is playing near you.