Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss\u2019 festival darling documentary, which finally hits Apple TV+ this weekend, is a sure-to-be future classic, both a microcosm of America\u2019s current national politics and a startling portrait of how those politics are shaping the next generation of young leaders. You can see the ricocheting effects of punditry and political division on impressionable young minds, and also undeniable examples of future politicians, who will take those messages with them \u2013 for good or ill \u2013 as they climb the ladder of success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Run by the American Legion, Boys State (and the female-focused Girls State) operates across the country. The program gives teenagers from across a given locale the opportunity to gather for a week at a state capitol to form a kind of mock government, complete with political parties (assigned by the American Legion as Nationalist and Federalist), platforms, and candidates for office. Boys State<\/em> focuses on Texas\u2019 event, and several of its driving characters. There\u2019s Rene, the outspoken, world-wise Nationalist party head; Steven, the Nationalist party\u2019s candidate for governor; Ben, a whip-smart Federalist party leader with a terrifying strategic mind; and Robert, a hopeful Nationalist gubernatorial candidate who\u2019s trying his best to figure out the balance of sincerity and charisma that will help him win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of the kids are fascinating to watch as they consider the mix of personal beliefs, group dynamics, and personal backgrounds that could determine their failure or success, for different reasons. Rene, with his rock-solid convictions and withering looks, is a sardonic voice of reason. Steven, the soft-spoken child of an immigrant mom (and on track to be the first high school grad in his family), is the movie\u2019s tender heart. Gun-toting West Point hopeful Robert is a character study in white privilege. Ben is a Machiavellian madman who may seem like a teenage politics nerd at the film\u2019s start, but ends it as a low-key villain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the midst of this, McBaine and Moss also document the makeshift society that the Boys State event creates, building its own strange world in the space of a single week. This world comes complete with sophomoric antics \u2013 there\u2019s a contingent of boys whose sole platform is state secession, just for the hell of it \u2013 and sitcom archetypes (there\u2019s always one kid who wants to play Careless Whisper<\/em> on the sax at the talent show). The event may only last seven days, but by the end of the film, the characters and social structure are so well developed that it feels more like it\u2019s been going on for six months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Boys State<\/em> is an outstanding piece of documentary filmmaking, not only because of the characters and events it depicts, but because of the cultural moment it captures. McBaine and Moss\u2019 honest, observant movie recognizes leadership attitudes in its teenage subjects that are shaped indelibly by current public figures, from Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump to Ben Shapiro. The directors show us young minds at work\u00a0\u2013 some altruistically, some selfishly\u00a0\u2013 driven by the forces that have defined what success looks like in the public eye. There\u2019s still a lot of room for these kids to grow, which is both a hopeful and cautiously foreboding statement. What\u2019s obvious is that the film\u2019s subjects will carry the lessons they learn for the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Boys State” is now streaming on Apple TV+.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Boys State begins with a famous quote from George Washington\u2019s farewell address about the potential danger of political parties, warning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":577,"featured_media":14672,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[340],"tags":[1098,162,1425],"class_list":["post-14669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-movie-review","tag-movies","tag-watch-this"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/577"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14669"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22753,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14669\/revisions\/22753"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Boys_State2-1024x576.jpg\")
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