Something worth watching

Miss Juneteenth, out today.

Miss Juneteenth premiered at Sundance earlier this year, and while I didn’t catch it there, I heard good things. So I was delighted it got picked up for release, and of course, they’re releasing it today (which is the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth, though the first year it’s been observed as a full-fledged holiday in wide bands of America; my workplace added it to our holiday calendar last week, and I know a lot of others did as well).

Here’s what I wrote about it:

The Miss Juneteenth pageant commemorates June 19, 1865, the day that enslaved Texans found out they had been freed. Turquoise (Nicole Beharie) won the pageant in 2004, but her life has been a series of setbacks since then as she works to support herself and her daughter, Kai (Alexis Chikaeze). Now Kai is old enough to enter the pageant, and Turquoise is determined she’ll do just that — but Kai is much more interested in the dance competition at her school. Miss Juneteenth is not a typical “pageant mom” movie; in the hands of Channing Godfrey Peoples (who previously wrote two episodes of Queen Sugar), the story unfolds carefully, without leaning on easy clichés. It’s a moving, sensitive drama about growing up, dealing with disappointment, and cultivating hope for the future.

I loved how it fiddled with what we expect from pageant movies without going off the caricatured comedy deep end — it’s definitely a drama, though it’s not without its light points — and … well, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

If you want to watch it, Miss Juneteenth is available on select on-demand and digital platforms, including iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play.