We Grown Now Deserves a wide Audience, and even Wider Conversation. Set in the past; Important Today.
DIRECTED BY: MINHAL BAIG/2024
We Grown Now is the latest film from writer/director Minhal Baig which follows two young boys and how they navigate growing up in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects in the year 1992. Skillfully told, this is a story that has the appearance of being like stillwater that is calm and serene, but with a vicious undercurrent that pulls you under, and at times shocks your system, alerting you of dangers you maybe didn’t realize were lurking there the entire time. Everything from the story, acting, camera work, and cinematography contributes to a beautifully told story that will resonate long after the final frame.
Malik (Blake Cameron James) and Eric (Gian Knight Ramirez) are two young boys who have shared their entire life experience growing up in the 16-story housing project of Cabrini-Green. From taking matresses from abandoned apartments to allow them to practice jumping, to shouting into the air about their worth and dignity, Malik and Eric have experienced it all together.
Much of the film chronicles their mundane daily routines of school, play, and the occassional conversations about the things they are interested in. Malik, however, when he goes home at night, begins to realize the slowly creeping worry of his mother Delores (Jurnee Smollett) and his grandmother Anita (S. Epatha Merkerson) as issues like finances and safety begin to squeeze their family. Eric’s father Jason (Lil Rel Howery), who is raising his older daughter, and Eric, is more open, even showing Eric how to budget to pay the various rent and utility bills, with the knowlege of how little is left each month. The children put on a brave front but the film demonstrates how kids internalize the pressures we, as adults, carry with us.
While Minhal Baig lulls us into a gentle rhythm of daily life for these two boys, her camera angles deftly capture opposing reactions to events as she might place the camera in the hallway of an interior allowing us to see Malick and his mother in seperate bedrooms hiding their coping methods from one another, for example. Much of the camerawork allows the audience to be flies on the wall, observers not just of the normal and mundane, but also when we are jolted from this routine as the ever growing dangers engulfing Cabrini-Green begin to make themselves known to both the characters, and by extension, us, the audience.
None of the life-altering dangers lurking in Cabrini-Green appear in a way that is sensational or forced, but like in real-life, they come crashing through the narrative with force. Issues of violence, system profiling, and the fear of a parent who doesn’t know where their kids are at a time that danger is present feel very real and authentic in We Grown Now. The sophistication and maturity that Blake Cameron James and Gian Knight Ramirez demonstrate, especially at their young ages, is amazing. The supporting cast delivers as well, particularly S. Epatha Merkerson and Jurnee Smollett. Their ability to demonstrate individuals under extreme pressure, while still leading their family with nobility and grace are stand-out performances.
We Grown Now is a film that deserves a wide audience, and even wider conversation afterwards. It is an important film for our times, though it is set 32 years in the past. The lessons of Cabrini-Green aren’t just for those who lived there and called it home. They are also for those who have never lived in such a place, who may never understand the story of so many who have. We all need to see a narrative like this. We all need to wrestle with the implications of its story. Only then will we be able to seriously address the issues that continue to plague our society, so that like Malik and Eric, we can truly dream of a better future together, and take that jump, all the while, never afraid to fly.
