We Grown Now
The beginning of the school year in 1992 finds 10 year-old best friends Malik (Blake Cameron James) and Eric (Gian Knight Ramirez) dragging an old mattress into Cabrini Green’s public housing playground. Malik believes the only thing that matters is jumping as high as he can, but events of that year will change both the boys’ perspectives when they realize “We Grown Now.”
Laura's Review: B+
Writer/director Minhal Baig’s ("Hala") ode to childhood isn’t your typical coming-of-age film. This lyrical rumination encompasses community, art and the dreams of both children and their elders while also addressing black migration, oppression, gun violence and police harassment.
The boys live next door to each other in a Cabrini Green tower, Malik with his younger sister, hard working mom Dolores (Jurnee Smollett, HBO's 'Lovecraft County,' "The Burial") and grandmother Anita (S. Epatha Merkerson, "Lincoln") who is always seen sewing; Eric with his college-bound sister Amber (Avery Holliday, "Perpetrator") and widowed dad Jason (Lil Rel Howery, "Get Out"). The boys attend school together and practically live at each other’s apartments, but the fatal (real life) shooting of 7 year-old Dantrell Davis within their complex changes everything and as they talk at the boy’s wake we realize that while Malik is a dreamer, Eric is more pessimistic.
This will come into play when, trying to find a better life, Dolores is offered a promotion with a much higher salary – in Peoria, three hours away. She is encouraged to make the leap by her mother, whose stories of leaving the family’s roots in Tupelo fascinate her grandson, especially after he and Eric skip school and head to the Chicago Art Institute where they view black artist Walter Ellison’s ‘Train Station’ and wonder why black redcaps carry white people’s luggage while the black people carry their own. But while Malik dreams of trains (beautifully imagined with shadow and light against his bedroom wall), Eric hears his friend is moving and he reacts poorly, causing a rift between the two.
Cinematographer Pat Scola ("Pig") emphasizes a child’s point of view before we even leave that initial playground scene, shooting several games of jump rope from the angle of one rope swinger’s feet. It’s as beautiful an image as an ensuing one is comedic, Malik torturing his younger sister over a spider crawling under a table Scola focuses on in his foreground. The boys are made small, Scola shooting them from a distance as they run down Cabrini Green’s grid-like streets. Production designer Merje Veski recreates the neighborhood, which was largely razed in 2011, imbuing apartments with cinderblock walls with warmth, Anita’s homemade orange drapes the Johnson’s signature furnishing. Jay Wadley’s ("I'm Thinking of Ending Things") use of chamber music, performed by Attaca Quartet, gives the proceedings a sense of wonder and beautiful melancholy.
Baig has gotten two wonderful performances from her young actors whose connection is palpable. While her script occasionally has them stating very grown up ideas (they will shout ‘we exist!’ from a height on two separate occasions), she’s given them each unique viewpoints while building separate but joined worlds around them. Smollett, who also produced, is heart wrenching as the worrying mom, her anguish during a 2 a.m. police raid emphasizing the unfeeling nature of cops and a general sense of hopelessness. Merkerson’s support is like a warm blanket, the older woman’s experience shining a light forward.
“We Grown Now” is an elegy for a lost community that celebrates the people who carry it with them.
Robin's Review: B+
Eric (Gian Knight Ramirez) and Malik (Blake Cameron James) are 12-year old best buddies growing up, in 1992, in the crime-threatened Cabrini-Green housing development in Chicago. For the boys, though, every day offers a brand new adventure in “We Grown Now.”
Writer-director Minhal Baig creates a genuinely original story about the lives of the two best friends forever. It also, gives a poignant and insightful look at the boy’s families, especially Malik’s, with his siblings, his hard-working but struggling single mom and grandma.
We follow the boys going to school, playing hooky, riding The Loop as they give us a tour of both the good and bad of Chicago. For the kids, the good is being together and being loved by their families. The bad, though, is the oppression and danger of their Cabrini-Green ‘hood with its shootings, police raids and apartments ransacked by the overly zealous cops in their indiscriminate search for illegal drugs.
The family life, while an offshoot of the kids’ lives and adventures, is given full attention, with Malik’s mom, Dolores (Jurnee Smollett), having a tough times raising a family, making ends meet and afraid to ask for a raise because she thinks she will lose her job. Grandma (S. Epatha Merckerson) adds to the family dynamic and is a key ingredient to this little nuclear family.
As I watched “We Grown Now,” I was struck with the natural, believable performances the director got from her two young stars. I lost myself in their honest performances, making me feel like I was watching a documentary about these kids and not a feature. That says a lot about the talent and skill of the writer-director and the performers themselves. I look forward to what comes next.
Sony Pictures Classics releases "We Grown Now" in NY on 4/19/24 before expanding on 4/26/24.
