Girlhood — Jazzy
One of the hardest things to pull off in film is a story about kids that feels authentic to the realities of being a kid. It’s rare, but when it happens, it’s some of the best stuff you’ll ever see. Whether it’s something sentimental like We Grown Now or over-the-top bonkers like Good Boys, when the childhood experience is properly depicted, it makes for an instant nostalgia engagement from the viewer that can’t really be broken.
That’s the case with Jazzy, directed by Morrisa Maltz, a side story/sequel to her previous acclaimed film, The Unknown Country (the common link being Lily Gladstone as Tana). It received two nominations at the Independent Spirit Awards this year, and has finally had its wide release. It’s a small film (one of the nods was for the John Cassavetes prize, which goes to projects with a budget under $1 million), but if you take the time to seek it out, you will be enchanted by how real and genuine it all feels.
The story takes place in a small community with a decent-sized indigenous population. That’s where we find our title character, played by Jasmine Bearkiller Shangreaux. She’s best friends with Syriah (Syriah Foohead; using the actors’ real names adds an extra degree of verisimilitude to the proceedings), and for the first 20 minutes or so, we just watch a slice-of-life montage of their grade school day-to-day. They play with each other, chat on the bus, laugh at their classmates as they clearly brag about how many girlfriends they have (they’re like, 8 years old), hang out at each other’s houses (a small trailer park), have birthday parties, all that normal kid stuff. They share imaginative stories and talk about their dreams (both future goals and the literal simulacrum they experience while sleeping), and you can’t help but smile at the innocence of it all. The two young leads have amazing chemistry together, and are incredibly charming.
Part of that is down to the script, which has a heavy emphasis on making sure these kids talk how regular kids talk. I think my favorite example of this is a very small scene where Jazzy and Syriah talk about their stuffed animals. Jazzy asks Syriah to pick a favorite, and she simply won’t, saying things like “all of them,” or “maybe this one, but then maybe this one, but ooh what about this one.” This is real interactive dialogue for developing minds, a far cry from the pseudo poetic or philosophical waxing that children do in M. Night Shyamalan movies. When you see them conversing and playing, you know you’re watching a real person learning how to grow up.
The plot takes a turn one day when Syriah stops speaking to Jazzy for no apparent reason, and even sits at a different seat on the bus. For several days Syriah randomly ignores her closest companion, and your heart just breaks. Jazzy has no idea what’s going on, what she might have done wrong to cause this, and the confusion is palpable. We’ve all felt it. And the honest answer that finally comes is something I think a lot of us have experienced. Simply put, their moms are fighting, and the girls are the collateral damage. Syriah’s mom forbids her from being friends with Jazzy because of an argument with the other girl’s mother. How many times have we seen this happen? I can recall at least two instances from my own childhood where I had a friend and then suddenly I didn’t because we were being used as weaponry in a proxy war between our respective parents. My guess is that the thinking is the kids will get over it, and due to their young age it’s impossible for them to be that close, but I definitely remember the casual nature with which my social life was dictated so early in its development.
Jazzy and Syriah eventually make up in a very sweet exchange of youthful honesty, and the source of the conflict is finally laid bare. Syriah is moving away to be closer with her extended family and engage more with her tribal roots. Oh, it hits you right in the feels. Jazzy must now learn to be independent and make new connections outside of the person who’s been at her side since she could walk, and it’s fascinating to watch, particularly when the nerdy boy who boasted about being a ladies’ man has to actually admit that he’s never had a girlfriend when confessing his crush to Jazzy herself. These moments are awkward, and sometimes borderline cringe, but they’re undeniably things that happen all the time
This transition in life is portrayed beautifully through two main avenues. The first is the cinematography, which keeps things at eye level for the protagonists. Even as Jazzy and Syriah reach adolescence, the camera work is almost exclusively from their perspective. Interactions with adults are kept to a minimum, and most of them are focused on how the girls react to what they’re being told, rather than showing the person telling it to them. In fact, we don’t see an adult’s face until over halfway through the film, and nothing of significance until the final act, when Jazzy and Syriah reunite at a family gathering, which also brings Tana (Jazzy’s cool aunt) into the mix. Maltz is showing us in no uncertain terms that this is a story about the kids and how they live. What the grown-ups do certainly affects things, but where it really counts, they’re not involved.
The second is the subtle incorporation of technology. I grew up in a time without internet or cell phones as an everyday accessible utility. If a friend moved away, that was it, friendship over. We couldn’t exactly keep in touch, as long distance phone charges were still a thing, and letter-writing was a tedious affair, especially when all you wanted to say was, “What’s up?” I was lucky enough that when I moved from Delaware to New York, there was still enough family business that allowed me to visit once or twice a year, so I was able to catch up with my two best friends and maintain that through graduation. I still keep in touch with one of them to this day (the other never got into social media and his old email address was shut down, so sadly I haven’t spoken to him in over 20 years, but I still think about him). For some of my classmates in rural, upstate NY, where online encroachment was VERY slow, the simple act of moving to another county meant the end of years-long relationships. One of the most miraculous things I’ve heard regards my roommate, who was able to maintain his closest kinship despite the other family moving from New Jersey to California when they were 6 or 7. This was through the efforts of the mothers, who had also become inseparable, but in the 80s and 90s, they were very much the exception, not the rule. I’m overjoyed to count both of them as my adoptive family.
Anyway, given the more modern setting, the film shows how distance doesn’t mean destruction anymore. Once Syriah moves away, the two still text back and forth, sending pictures and videos as well, even though both of their phones aren’t in the best shape (I recall Syriah’s being well cracked). This also helps serve the idea of Jazzy’s growing independence and self-identity, as the messages become less and less frequent as time goes on. However, the key is that they never go away entirely, and when the potential for awkwardness occurs when they meet up again, it’s a simple understanding that both young ladies have other stuff going on, but they’ll make the time for each other eventually, because the bond never broke. There are a lot of things I don’t care for with regards to the digital age, but the ability to keep connected to those you love no matter how far apart you are is a universal good, and seeing it in this context made things even more heartwarming.
This movie isn’t going to break any box office records or campaign hard for next year’s Oscars, but if you get the chance, you owe it to yourself to check it out. It’s so refreshing to see kids just be themselves. Watching them grow, I was reminded fondly of films like Boyhood that truly understood what it was like to be a child, the good times and the bad, and how it’s all essential to developing into a functioning human being. It can be a bit basic and treacly at times, but so is life, and as you get older, you learn to cherish these moments more and more, especially if you have someone to share them with.
Grade: A
Join the conversation in the comments below! What film should I review next? Are you still close to your childhood best friends? How did you confess your first crush? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) as well as Bluesky, and subscribe to my YouTube channel for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!
Originally published at http://actuallypaid.com on March 5, 2025.
