Puberty is an important time of a person's life. All of a sudden, your body makes drastic changes, your emotions go haywire and you're beginning to understand more... adult topics. During my time on the puberty stage, however, I was deep into The Muppets Show. I justified my obsession with the idea that this show wasn't like its predecessor Sesame Street at all; it was edgier and raunchy and filled with stranger puppets than Sesame Street could ever come up with. I was amazed by the imagination of Jim Henson, and soon, I was getting my hands on everything related to him.

This is when I discovered Henson's 1986 film,"Labyrinth." The movie stars the late David Bowie (in all of his '80s glory), and a young Jennifer Connelly. It is one of the strangest things you will ever watch. It's a grimy fantasy film, packed with strange creatures, '80s musical numbers and Bowie's... crystal balls. What? He had tight pants!

Still, it's easy to get caught up in the superficial parts of the film. It's an odd movie, don't get me wrong, but there is more to this movie than meets the eye. It's a fairy tale mixed with a coming-of-age story, and it was the perfect movie to watch when I was entering puberty because of how much it understood what I was going through at my age.

Note: This will contain spoilers for the movie, so if you don't want to be spoiled, go ahead and watch the movie first. Just come back afterwards. Please?

Teenaged Sarah (played by Jennifer Connelly) is a whiny drama queen that is stuck watching her baby half-brother. Mad at the "unfairness" of it all, Sarah draws on the play she was attempting to memorize and calls upon the play's Goblin King to take her brother away. And he does! The Goblin King, Jareth (played by David Bowie) gives Sarah an ultimatum: get through a huge labyrinth and reach the center in 13 hours, or her brother will be turned into a goblin forever. The movie plays like a surreal road-trip film, going from location to another while meeting interesting and morally complex characters along the way. The world Sarah is dropped in is a place where anything could happen, and through it all, Jareth watches, growing to pine for the young girl he's trapped in his own labyrinth.

It sounds like a fun, wacky adventure film on paper, but what's truly interesting about the story is Sarah's character transformation. From the start, Sarah has to learn to step it up and try to outwit her opponents in the labyrinth. More importantly, however, she has to grow in order to outwit Jareth, who seems to have her in the palm of his hands and yet can never truly have her. Yes, a grown man might be in love with a teenage girl (depends on how you interpret his actions), and while that may be seen as gross to some, this is where we start to look deeper in the journey Sarah has taken and why she has caught the gaze of the Goblin King.

Why would Sarah go on this journey in particular? In any hero's journey, the journey is usually tailored to suit the hero's wants and needs. Sarah wants to find her baby brother, but more importantly, she needs to figure out whether she is going to stay stuck in the past or move forward into the future. Sarah starts out as a dreamer; she loves to act and be overdramatic, she still plays with dolls and stuffed animals and she views the world through a selfish lens that only children (and man-children) use. However, she's also a teenage girl. She desires to be seen as an adult and is becoming aware of her sexuality. I mean, why do you think the Goblin King is played by an attractive rock star wearing tight pants? Isn't it every girl's dream to be swept away by a hot guy? To be the center of a handsome prince's world?

And Jareth is both Sarah's opposite and identical twin. He's a man-child, waiting impatiently for Sarah to give up on his labyrinth and doing stupid things like stealing babies, but he's also a grown man. A magical, tights-wearing man who can get a girl to eat a peach that makes her forget everything, and takes her to a magical ballroom in a bubble where they have a beautiful dance together (yes, this movie is weird, but put that aside and focus). This is the dream of a lot of teenage girls (including myself): the idea of being loved by someone beyond our understanding, an almost supernatural being that we want but can never have. And that's what Sarah realizes as she is spun around in a room full of jeering, disturbing people in masks. The world of adults can be alarming, and while it's nice to dream about this type of stuff, the reality of it can be a lot scarier if you're not ready for it. Like Sarah, we have to break the bubble we're trapped in and run out of there. We may be able to go back someday, but only when we're mentally mature enough to do it.

So does that mean we should stay children forever? No, the movie says. Immediately after the ballroom scene, Sarah is dropped in a landfill, where she discovers her room, exactly as she left it. But she is visited by an old hag with a shell made out of the junk she loves. The hag starts to pile Sarah's things onto her, trying to get her to remember her favorite toys and trinkets. And from there, Sarah realizes that all these things she once treasured don't mean anything anymore, and that they, along with her childish fantasies, are holding her down and keeping her from the important things in her life, like rescuing her brother from a goblin king. Not quite an adult yet, but certainly not a child anymore, Sarah can only advance forward, complete her quest, and go from there with a new determination to be a more mature person.

Sarah's play has a climatic monologue that she is able to recite perfectly, except for the final line. "You have no power over me." That final line cannot be uttered until she is able to understand what it means. Without her childish fantasies, Jareth cannot exist. He is, of course, a representation of everything that Sarah has wanted and desired; all her misguided dreams of being an adult yet still being a child, packaged in a sexy magical king. But she can't dream like that anymore, not if she wants to better herself. She rejects his promise of dreams and being together forever ("Fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave" is the one line every girl faints over) and escapes the crumbling world with her brother, becoming a person not defined by her age or mentality, but by the need to grow and change.

Granted, it's okay if you didn't see the movie that way. The movie is incredibly cheesy and hokey by today's standards. Jennifer Connelly looks beautiful, but she was not yet the great actress she is today, and the writing couldn't be more "awkwardly '80s" if it tried. But I was surprised by the movie's message. It was something special to a growing girl like me. It got what I was becoming, and reminded me that even though I will fantasize, I will need to let go of those dreams one day. It's something that a lot of people need to hear as we grow and change ourselves.

But don't worry, as the end of Labyrinth reminds us, should we ever need our dreams again, we can always call on them. We can't change in one day, you know.

Some scenes from the movie:

The infamous ballroom scene where David Bowie is at his most fabulous.

The final climax scene, the "You have no power over me" part.