Princess Cyd is a 2017 American coming-of-age drama film written and directed by Stephen Cone and starring Rebecca Spence, Jessie Pinnick, and Ro White.
[a][2] Cyd Loughlin, a headstrong 16-year-old, is sent away from her home in Columbia, South Carolina, to spend the summer in Chicago with her estranged aunt Miranda, a kindhearted author of religious fiction.
Despite having a boyfriend back home, Cyd explores her sexuality, developing a romance with a local barista named Katie, as well as a neighborhood boy.
Miranda sternly but kindly explains that she derives pleasure from activities other than sex, such as reading and going to church, before declaring that "it is not a handicap to have one thing, but not another", and that mutual respect is a key factor in any healthy relationship.
Cone had originally conceived the story as taking place in his childhood home of South Carolina, as with his 2011 breakout film The Wise Kids.
[8] Princess Cyd received a positive response from film critics, appearing on Best of 2017 lists in Vanity Fair, Vox, Vulture, IndieWire, and NPR, among others.
The website's critics consensus reads, "Princess Cyd defies coming-of-age convention to offer a sweetly understated – yet deeply resonant – look at pivotal relationships.
[10] Calum Marsh of The Village Voice compared the film favorably to Cone's previous work Henry Gamble's Birthday Party and called it "an endearing, full-hearted comedy of self-discovery and mentorship and love.
"[13] Conversely, Nick Schager of Variety called it a "precious, threadbare indie" and wrote, "Caring more about what its characters represent – and its empathetic representation of them – than about crafting a fully formed drama concerning flesh-and-blood people, Cone's film has little more than its heart in the right place.