Coming-of-age movies never go out of style. There are two reasons for this: First, teenagers make up a huge portion of the movie market, and they like watching stories close to their own experience. Second, when aspiring writers dredge their own lives for drama, laughs, or wisdom, their coming-of-age is often the first thing that bobs to the surface. (Sometimes it’s the only thing.) Because there are so many coming-of-age movies, one needs to discriminate, and for me the determining factor has always been idiosyncrasy. In real life people take many different routes, and cross many different thresholds, on their way to adulthood—yet too many coming-of-age movies involve parents or grandparents dying, or nubile lovers mating in the dewy woods.

David Gold, the protagonist of Guidance, is a former child actor and sitcom star, now badly alcoholic and reduced to recording motivational tapes. David’s director fires him, complaining that he sounds too gay, and his landlady is ready to evict him. Needing a job, David passes himself off as a high school guidance counselor, and before long his office becomes a magnet for the school misfits, mainly because he dispenses free shots of vodka. When a fat girl comes to him for help, David urges her to own her size and breaks out a package of Hostess cupcakes; when a promiscuous student asks for advice, David tells her to take pride in her sexual appetite; when the school pot dealer shows up in his office, David trades him a pint of vodka for a gram of weed. His advice always boils down to accepting oneself; ironically, he’s incapable of following it himself.

How to Win at Checkers (Every Time) Based on two short stories by Rattawut Lapcharoensap, this compact Thai drama emphasizes setting and character over incident. A preadolescent boy lives with his aunt, younger sister, and older brother in a working-poor community on the outskirts of Bangkok; writer-director Josh Kim sticks close to the boy’s perspective, divulging little about the characters that the young hero can’t figure out on his own. The older brother is openly gay, but whether he encounters any prejudice isn’t clear—what matters is that the younger boy regards him as a role model and wants to spend time with him. Kim handles their relationship delicately without lapsing into sentimentality. In Thai with subtitles. —Ben Sachs 81 min. Mon 9/21, 7:15 PM.

Guidance ★★★ Directed by Pat Mills 81 min. Landmark’s Century Centre