In "The Starling Girl," actress Eliza Scanlen plays Jem Starling, a 17-year-old girl from a fundamental Christian church in Kentucky who pursues a relationship with a youth pastor a decade older.
It's a story that might easily slip into lurid melodrama or sensationalism. But as Scanlen read writer-director Laurel Parmet's screenplay, she realized the film had more sensitive, complicated things in mind.
"I thought it was a unique portrayal of relationships that have an age gap," the 24-year-old Australian actress says on a recent video call. "It didn't fall into a stereotype, which is very easy for that to occur. I think often people eroticize those relationships or they are reduced to simply the aggressor/victim of abuse dynamics.
