“We Grown Now” (2023) is a poignant coming-of-age film, which starts in the fall of 1992 in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green and follows a pair of best friends, Malik (Blake Cameron James) and Eric (Gian Knight Ramirez) as they play, go to school and spend their evenings with their families. An act of random violence, which did occur in real-life on October 13th, 1992, rocks their neighborhood to its core as each family faces the possibility of accidental homicide and the impact of overzealous law enforcement treating them like criminals in their own home. As the crackdown on crime impacts the innocent young boys, they find different ways to navigate the changing psychological landscape, but will they be able to stay together?
If you are like me and did not see “We Grown Now” when it was in theaters, we failed one of the best theatrical releases of 2024. Movies with little boy protagonists are not a big draw in part because child actors vary wildly in quality, and the marketing for this film did not offer sufficient bait to hook an audience beyond two little boys in Chicago. For an independent film that is not experimental or shapeless, there were not enough contextual clues to signal what made this movie special. It is about existing in the twilight of the razing of a block of buildings which contain an ebbing specialness of connection, historicity and potential.
First generation Pakistani American director Minhal Baig made an empathic masterpiece, which addresses the human side of a vilified community by depicting one multigenerational family with memories of the Great Migration. It is not an exaggeration to describe Cabrini-Green, which has since been gentrified, as a demonized locale. When people think of poverty or violence in Chicago, people are imagining that area, which many have already noted as the setting for most of the iconic horror “Candyman” franchise movies, but also was the site of the 1975 classic “Cooley High” and comedic television series “Good Times” or an inspirational flick like “Hardball” (2001) starring Keanu Reeves. Baig’s film does not contain a shred of condescension or exploitation and feels like the kind of film that James Grey wanted to make with “Armageddon Time” (2022) but couldn’t.
Even amidst the concrete and white-painted cinder blocks, “We Grown Now” exudes warmth among the characters and individuates the identical homes with stamps of each family’s personal sense of style. In the beginning, the children congregating in a makeshift playground already feels nostalgic when Baig shoots the scene in slow mo, accentuating each color with a painterly eye and depicting their games as the children see themselves, joyously soaring impossibly in the air in a competition that dominates their free time. Before going home, they linger in the outdoor walkways with a protective chain link partition lining the balcony and obstructing their vision of the skyline, but not their voices as they call to each other or shout declarations of their existence into the ether. Similar scenes will also appear in the soon to be released “Sing Sing” (2024), which makes the short theatrical run of this film a further disappointment. These films would make a great pairing about bone-deep humanity that must transcend the literal, societal physical bonds that restrict one’s true self. Here, their voices can pass through the chains of existence.
In the first act when the boys spend most of their time together, Malik feels like the lead as the dreamer who imagines of places beyond his back door. He lives with his mother, Dolores (Jurnee Smollett), his grandmother, Anita (S. Epatha Merkerson) and sister, Diana (Madisyn Barnes). They are the kind of family who still has dinner together at the table, have strong family memories that make the past seem present and talk about their day. Their memories of the South haunt Malik’s nights with the tenebrous spectre of a train impossibly passing outside his high-rise bedroom window. Eric is content to stay within the bounds of his known world forever and has a more improvisational style family with his single dad, Jason (Lil Rey Howery) who works at a local pizzeria, offering food to his children from his job as dinner. His big sister, Amber (Avery Holliday), uses the table as a desk to study and prepare for the next chapter of her life. They are ordinary people living quiet lives in their respective homes.
The second act is dominated with how the family and friends’ dynamic changes. Physical violence is rarely depicted on screen here. Thankfully no orgy of Black slaughtered bodies here. The violence is psychological and systematic. Their homes become a war zone not because of gangsters, but because of the people who allegedly serve and protect them, which is not just police officers but also the parents and teachers who out of love, begin to restrict their children’s movements. Children are subject to the whims of the adults in their life and can exercise little to no control of their lives. The best friends rebel adorably in the nerdiest fashion ever by playing hooky to go to the museum, and upon their return, the Cabrini Green grounds seem a little less vibrant and more overcast.
While pogrom is a word usually applied to violence against minorities such as Jewish people in Eastern Europe or Western Asia, it could also be applicable here. Baig establishes how this neighborhood is a nurturing environment before disrupting it in a shocking fashion. The municipal campaign of terror only heightens these families’ sense of helplessness and instills the seeds of division between the pair as the palpable oppression stifles their imagination and interactions. This last indignity motivates Dolores to brainstorm ideas on how to overcome the mounting obstacles, and Jason reminds his son of the temporal nature of life so he can appreciate the finiteness of friendship due to circumstance.
It was unexpected and refreshing to see a three-generation family relatively free from conflict. Smollett and Merkerson had great chemistry as mother and daughter. It has been a while since seeing Smolett playing an ordinary woman. Merkerson seemed to get younger and lighter as “We Grown Now” unfolded, which is a stark contrast to the two leads becoming less carefree. The children become stressed with the changes to their environment, but Merkerson signals Anita’s confidence in her daughter’s ability to care for the family and remembers the freedom from fear that change can provide after leaving the Deep South. James and Ramirez are already this good at such a young age, so they are two to watch as future greats. If there was a misstep, it was the initial introduction of Eric’s family. It was unclear the relationship between the three until later, and Howery was underutilized though ultimately their storyline worked.
“We Grown Now” deserves a second life once it is available for home viewing but if it ever gets a repertory run, take advantage of the opportunity. Like life preserved in amber, the film effectively conveys how imagination can be a tool to see people for who they really are in a way that the news never did by flattening the existence of people that they feared when covering a tragedy.
