Sundance 2020

[Chris Knipp]

Best documentary?


RENE GARZA INBOY'S STATE

BOYS STATE (Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine) gets a total rave from Jason Gormer of SLASHFILM: "Smart, entertaining, darkly comic and profoundly unsettling, BOYS STATE is simply brilliant, the best film of Sundance, and already in contention to be one of the best films of the year," he says. Focused on the "Boys State" summer program tun by the American Legion in various states across the country as dispatched in this case to Austin, Texas to run in mock elections, the documentary focuses on four keenly political youths, whom Gormer describes. John DeFore of HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, who attended Texas Boy's state himself as a youth and was disenchanted by it, approaches this film with skepticism. He opines that the American Legion ought to reimagine its program, "and add an apostrophe after 'boys' while they're at it." He argues that these four boys can't stand for the thousand at the gathering. In their need "to squeeze this strange experience into a familiar doc template," DeFore says, the filmmmakers have done some serious distorting. Andrew Kaufman's SCREENDAILY review more moderately suggests that this film uses "a combination of luck and proficient editing" as well as a judicious choice of personalities, but still shows today's party divisiveness and dirty tricks. SCREENDAILY also finds much to admire in the film's " unassuming hero, Steven Garza," the son of Mexican immigrants, and his chief rival for the Boys State governership, Rene Otero, "a supremely charismatic African American former Chicagoan" who like Garza seems out of place but rises "through the ranks" through his remarkable oratorical skills. If this sounds stimulating, Apple and A24 may have done right to pick the film up. This team's THE OVERNIGHTERS (2014) is one of the most memorable documentaries I've seen in recent years, so this film comes with strong credentials. Possibly a dissent? Mike D'Angelo indicates on his website that he walked out.