Apple’s new documentary was filmed at the perfect time to generate excitement

In 2020, filmmakers Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss released their films Boy state, a stunning, compulsively watchable documentary that combines all of America’s political flaws into one competitive event. McBaine and Moss participated in the 2018 Texas edition of Boys State, an annual leadership event that brings together a thousand teenage boys to form a mock U.S. government. They followed a handful of contestants vying for public office and learned terrible lessons about American politics, alternating between acting like jaded statesmen and acting like teenagers. One of the most obvious questions that emerged from this documentary was: What is the girls’ version of this event?

The filmmakers answered this question on Apple TV Plus Girl statea structurally similar documentary filmed during the 2022 Missouri edition of the associated event for teenage girls. As it turns out, audiences and filmmakers weren’t the only ones wondering how the Boys State and Girls State experiences might differ: Over the course of filming, one of… Girl stateEmily Worthmore, the series’ central subject, launches an investigation into the inequities in funding, rules, and focus of programs and uncovers some unsurprising truths. Between these revelations and the exact time in 2022 when the documentary was filmed, Girl state is perfectly designed to be angry – and just as meaningful as Boy state it was about the state of America.

Worthmore is one of the few subjects the documentary filmmakers explore as she lays out her expectations for the program (and her ambitious future political career), joins the event, runs for office, faces disappointments, and then her investigation into it introduces how boys’ and girls’ programs work in comparison. The scaling back of Worthmore’s ambitions is sobering: her belief at the start of the film that she will run for president of the United States by 2040 crumbles over the course of just a week of Girls State.

Similar to Boy stateThroughout the documentary, the impression is that the experiences of the people portrayed reflect similar stories of hundreds of participants, each of whom could have made an equally compelling (or even more compelling) protagonist. There’s a lot going on at this event, as so many ambitious, precocious young activists report being satisfactorily successful and central in their hometown’s student governments – and then have to grapple for the first time with the idea that they may not appear nearly as much exceptional or remarkable once they enter a larger pond. At the same time, many of them seem to be meeting people with different political beliefs for the first time. And while they all announce their intention to listen to the opposition without malice and to truly engage with the issues, the filmmakers repeatedly film them talking over each other or eliminating each other.

But the more fascinating and sadder thread runs through Girl state comes from its timing: the event occurred in the time window between Leak revealing Supreme Court intent to overthrow Roe v. Wade and that the actual decision will be published. The filmmakers repeatedly film Girls State participants confidently saying that the court would not do this Strictly speaking Take such extreme measures – even during an event where the Girls State Supreme Court, which is made up of only teenage girls, is soberly deciding whether women should be legally forced to undergo counseling before being allowed to have an abortion.

Compared to the newer document, Boy state feels much more internal and self-centered. The central subjects in this documentary also lose some of their naivety and optimism about American politics, but that is entirely due to their interaction with each other and their own political system. In contrast, the topics of Girl state trying to express their confidence in their power and influence in the world, while at the same time watching their country deny them the right to their own bodies and emphasize their powerlessness. It is a particularly unpleasant irony to watch them work to piece together their own political beliefs and future while their government bans them from all options.

While not the primary focus here, the film is still marked by an uncomfortable interplay between the intended empowerment of this political playground of youth culture and the unnerving nature of real-world politics and sexism, including the facts Worthmore reveals about the funding of Girls State digs and rules. And there’s a similarly compelling, thought-provoking interplay between the different social pressures these girls face – to compete with one another and support one another, to be energetic yet polite, to be decisive yet open-minded. The central subjects are smart and self-aware enough to recognize how these constraints conflict with each other and to discuss and debate them.

That alone holds Girl state of being depressing. Rather, it’s fascinating to see how McBaine and Moss tie all the different stories together and how they capture both the similarities between the girls they highlight and the differences between their approach to the event and what they take away from it . Like his counterpart, Girl state delves deeper into what it feels like to be young, confident, and politically ambitious in America right now, and captures the kinds of pressures that are pushing the next generation to step back or take action. Worthmore appears to be emerging from the project with renewed determination and purpose. We hope she is not alone.

Girl state is now streaming on Apple TV Plus.