"This isn't me," says the 17-year-old heroine of "Pariah," a remarkable debut feature, by Dee Rees, that opens today in national distribution. One of the two things she's talking about is a dress her mother wants her to wear to church. The other is an essence of self—an irreducible Me—that she has already identified but can't yet declare. Alike—she pronounces her name ah-LEE-kay—is a black lesbian living in Brooklyn. She's played by Adepero Oduye, who gives a performance, first heartbreaking and later thrilling, that swings between the darkness of spiritual isolation and the incandescence of self-discovery, with quiet interludes of affecting earnestness. Alike's religious mother, Audrey (Kim Wayans), refuses to credit the evidence of her eyes and heart. "I know God doesn't make mistakes," she insists. But there's no mistaking the nature of Alike's struggle, or the abundance of talent that's gone into the making of Ms. Rees's semiautobiographical film. (Bradford Young did the fine cinematography.)

"Pariah" is genuinely original, even though the theme of a gay person's coming out is familiar, and the title, along with the setting and milieu, suggests a similarity to "Precious." The similarity, though, is barely skin-deep. Unlike the illiterate, obese and inarticulate Precious, this heroine is vivacious, attractive and constantly out there seeking love and acceptance. (Alike is also portrayed as such a gifted writer that the film's resolution feels like a bit of a cheat.) The originality lies in the details, and the dramatic energy that sustains almost every scene.

Charles Parnell is seductive and obtuse as Alike's father, Arthur, an NYPD detective who, in an abject failure of detection, insists on seeing her as daddy's little girl. Pernell Walker is her best friend, Laura, and Aasha Davis is Bina, the supposedly straight daughter of one of Audrey's co-workers. It's not fair to say that Ms. Davis steals scenes—one of the movie's strengths is its ensemble cast—but she supercharges every scene she's in.