Boys State.

One casualty of the new streaming wars is that some good films are going to go unseen by a wide swath of the audience, and may miss out on awards consideration for the same reason. The documentary Boys State looks like one of those, as Apple bought its rights after it won the top documentary prize at Sundance, so now it’s on Apple TV+ and unavailable any other way. I only know about it because Will and Tim discussed it on the Grierson & Leitch podcast, and both had it on their top 25 for the year (Will had it at #3), but right now it’s one of the ten best movies I’ve seen from the 2020 slate.

Boys State takes its name from a nationwide series of events run by the American Legion – yes, there is also a separate slate of Girls States – where high school students from around each of the 50 states gather for a long weekend, split into two fictional parties, and then hold elections for major state offices all the way up to Governor. The filmmakers followed the kids at Boys State in Texas in 2018, focusing on four boys in particular who went into the event hoping to run for prominent roles, from party leaders to Governors, while also getting solid representation of ethnic backgrounds and political views.

It’s hardly surprising that we hear a lot of reactionary political statements from these boys as they give speeches early in the film to vie for various positions in their two parties’ apparatuses, notably hardline opposition to gun control and misogynistic views against any sort of abortion rights, with a dash of homophobia and some generally anti-government sentiments thrown in for added flavor. (I do wonder how different that last bit might be whenever they next hold Boys State events, in the wake of the terror attack on the Capitol earlier this month.) What is far more interesting, however, is the extent to which at least some of those comments are performative, or just plain Machiavellian, as one participant who seems to be a hardliner says in a one-on-one moment with the filmmakers that he doesn’t believe these things – he just sees Boys State as a game, and voicing those views is a path to winning.

The four main stars of the film all turn out to be extremely compelling for their presences on camera and for the diversity of their backstories. Steven Garza, who runs for Governor, is the son of a woman who came to the U.S. from Mexico as an undocumented immigrant, and makes his mark on the conference with his compassion and his willingness to find common ground with potential voters through individual discussions. René Otero grabs your attention early in the film with a powerful speech that helps become chairman of one of the two parties, coming across as progressive compared to the room but also managing to sound that way without committing himself too strongly to specific policy ideas. He’s Black, and Garza is Latino, which is notable given how overwhelmingly white the entire student body at Boys State is – the filmmakers clearly made a choice here to follow some nonwhite students. The other two boys at the center of the film are Ben Feinstein, a double-amputee due to childhood meningitis, and seeks to lead the opposite party from Otero; and Robert MacDougall, a good likeness for a young Blake Jenner, and more of what I expected to see from the film – a good ol’ boy, an athlete, and someone who says all the right-wing things.

Where it goes from there surprised me, as not every kid is quite what they seem to be at first, various conflicts arise between and within the two parties, and we see some real growth from a few of the boys even though the event takes place in just a few days. There’s also some organic drama in the run-up to the final elections, including some underhanded tricks on social media, and the ending is far more emotional than I anticipated given the film’s subject. There’s some fat the filmmakers could have trimmed, like the glimpses we get of the event’s talent show, time that could have gone to showing more of the conference’s press corps, who seem to play a more important role than the film lets us see. I might have a little more of a connection to Boys State because I attended some similar events in high school (but not Boys State specifically) and helped run a Model Congress event while I was in college, but Boys State is so well-crafted, and so generous towards its subjects, that I think it’ll appeal to anyone who is able to see it.