FILM: We Grown Now

We Grown Now is the most heartwrenchingly beautiful film. Early on, one of the characters says that there’s a poetry in everything if you look for it, and this film proves that out. The film follows two young boys growing up in a sprawling public housing project in Chicago in 1992. It has the tender bittersweetness and nostalgic wonder of Stand By Me, the honest examination of Black American experience like A Raisin in the Sun, and some love for Chicago with a couple of winks at Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but none of those comparisons captures it. Everything you might think of when you hear “public housing project” – struggling single-parent families, poorly maintained buildings, drug gangs, random shootings – is all there, not glossed over, but not the focus either, just the background for showing how someone can still see the stars through the cracks in the ceiling. During the credits of the film, there is a series of beautiful archival photos of people living in the Cabrini-Green housing project (since demolished) where this film was set, and I wonder if those were the starting point for writer-director Minhal Baig to imagine what life was like for those people in that place and time. I know it’s only April, but I’m ready to nominate this film for next year’s Oscars in nearly every category. The script is so fresh, original, authentic, and full of heart. The direction is absolute master class in what film should be about, tethered to cinemaphotography that is the most gorgeous visual poetry. The ensemble of actors are brilliant, making a compelling story of action and expression from this character-driven, slice-of-life script. I can’t remember the last time (if ever?) I thought that sound added so much to a film, but here sounds as simple as the drip of a leaky pipe add a rich dimension. And all enhanced by a subtle but powerful orchestral score. This is truly film-making at its best.