A Lower East Side teenager struggles to find some sanity.<BR>&nbsp;

A Lower East Side teenager struggles to find some sanity.

In a crumbling tenement building on Manhattan\'s Lower East Side, Victor Vargas, Victor Rasuk, lives with his loving but cantankerous grandmother, Altagracia Guzman, and his younger sister and brother. Victor fancies himself a bit of a ladies\'man, but so far the only girl who has let him have his way with her is Fat Donna who lives upstairs. This makes him a bit of a laughing stock, so he decides to pursue the prettiest girl in the neighborhood, Juicy Judy, Judy Marte. Meanwhile various complications and mishaps enrage Grandmother to the point that she goes to the authorities to seek help in controlling her wayward grandson. Raising Victor Vargas, the first film by writer-director Peter Sollett, is a little gem. The actors are non-professionals who are playing characters close to themselves, and seldom have the problems of adolescence been so sensitively, honestly and amusingly portrayed. The performances are all superb, with Altagracia Guzman easily stealing the film as the stubbornly righteous grandmother who loves her grandchildren but who refuses to be intimidated by them. The minor characters, especially that of Judy\'s best friend, are also beautifully realised. Raising Victor Vargas is a very small film, but a most impressive one.