It’s not about what any audience would probably be thinking of a film carrying such a title. Marking her feature debut in How to Have Sex, director Molly Manning Walker follows the story of three teenage girls in the UK who try to spare their summer vacation exploring all sorts of fun that has been made available for them as they are approaching the age of 18; these include drinking booze and hitting night clubs, as well as having sex. After we are introduced to the main characters, the film focuses specifically on Tara, who will be involved in most of the events. This girl is a wonderful representation of the stage of crossing between high school’s conclusion to the start of the so-called real world of maturity. She is confused about many things, shewants to enjoy her time without responsibility like her friends, but she thinks more than them about her next step, especially the one related to having sex for the first time. While several films have attempted to spotlight this transitional stage, How to Have Sex highlighting is different in its approach in that it focuses more on the state of confusion and indecisiveness and captures the sense of loss that one can feel during this life stage when making certain decisions.However, what is most striking about the director’s award-winning film at the Un Certain Regards at the Cannes Film Festival 2023 is her treatment of the film’s events and her decision not to condemn one party at the expense of the other or turn the film’s narrative into a perpetrator and victim. Rather, she makes it seem as if she is presenting a series of choices that a person at this age might make, and that perhaps need to be reviewed before making them, not after. Walker does this without pointing the finger at her characters.Andrew Mohsen