- We Grown Now
- Written and directed by Minhal Baig
- Starring Blake Cameron James, Gian Knight Ramirez and S. Epatha Merkerson
- Classification PG; 94 mins
- Opens in select theatres May 10
Although set in the specific location of Chicago’s public-housing project Cabrini-Green, We Grown Now could be set anywhere in the world. Watching it last year at the Toronto Film Festival, I remember thinking this could be a story set in the Jane-Finch neighbourhood in this city. Or Malvern, Regent Park, Lawrence Heights or Dixon Road. The story of two young Black boys growing up in community housing, where people look out for each other even as their bodies and homes are policed by authorities, felt familiar.
The details are a little different. But some of the scenes in filmmaker Minhal Baig’s second feature felt like they could have been ripped from a newspaper’s headlines. Young boy tragically shot. A community in grief. Police raids in high-rise buildings with a predominantly Black resident population. Carding.
It makes sense that Baig’s drama is based on a lot of interviews with community members of Cabrini-Green. There’s a lived-in feeling to many of the vignettes that make up this story. However, there’s also a wistful, metaphorical quality to the film, which doesn’t always work, bogging it down in gravitas and melancholy.
We Grown Now revolves around two best friends Malik (Blake Cameron James) and Eric (Gian Knight Ramirez). When we first meet the duo, they’re dragging a mattress down one of the highrises that make up the housing project, through the concrete pavement onto a playground. All so that they can jump. It’s 1992 and the boys are living a carefree life, full of gumption and the occasional middle-school joke.
Malik’s mom Dolores (Jurnee Smollett) is a single parent, working hard to provide the best life for her child. Dolores’s mother Anita (S. Epatha Merkerson) lives with them, and offers a window between the past and present. Eric lives with his father and older sister, always striving, but struggling, to meet his father’s high expectations.
Jurnee Smollett in a scene from We Grown Now.The Associated Press
Whenever the boys get a chance to escape – from a boring school lesson or a dreary environment – they take it. However, the death of a seven-year-old child in the neighbourhood heightens the fissures in the small cracks that are beginning to form in their friendship.
The two young actors are fantastic. The film truly lies on their delicate shoulders. And they soar to the challenge, mouthing lines that feel out of place – no matter how precocious these kids may be. The disjointed narrative intercut with dream-like sequences adds a ponderous quality to the film, heightened even more by the occasional dramatic score. The film sometimes feels overwhelmed by its aesthetics, especially when a substantial part of it unfolds in whispers and shadows.
The adult actors are good in their roles. Smollett’s turn as Dolores shines a light on the predicament of a Black mother, constantly worried about her child’s well-being, as she struggles to provide for her family and push herself further on her personal ambitions. Merkerson will forever be Law & Order’s Lieutenant Van Buren for me. Unfortunately, her role as Malik’s grandmother doesn’t go much beyond the surface, offering pithy observations in the plot line; the same quibble can be made for the characters of Eric’s family.
The cinematography is lovely and achieves the film’s desire to be a loving ode to Cabrini-Green. But it doesn’t quite capture the complexities of life in that particular housing project. which was ultimately demolished in 2011. You get a sense of that potential of exploration in the documentary photos that accompany the credits for the film – images of some of the residents of Cabrini-Green, whose personal stories inform the film.
Malik and Eric may feel they’re “grown now.” The closing scene suggests a level of maturing the boys must endure. In real life, however, I eagerly await to see what other projects James and Ramirez work on. Their future seems full of promise.