Speak

Stewart gives an amazingly touching performance as Melinda Sordino, a high school freshman who has retreated into selective mutism after being raped at a summer party. Having called the cops on a popular senior, Melinda is now a social pariah, with her parents (Perkins, Sweeney) too preoccupied to recognize her anguish. But over the school year, her unconventional art teacher, Mr. Freeman (Zahn), shows Melinda that expressing herself is a way to confront her experience. Based on the novel by Laurie Halse Anderson.