Cusp, 2021.
Directed by Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt.
SYNOPSIS:
In a Texas military town, three teenage girls confront the dark corners of adolescence at the end of a fever dream summer.
The first sight in Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt’s documentary Cusp couldn’t more literally visualise its central thematic, observing two young girls hanging out on a swing while two boys in the background fire off automatic rifles and pistols.
As the girls take selfies and banter amongst themselves, they’re blissfully unbothered that danger whizzes by mere feet from where they’re laying.
Cusp sees Hill and Bethencourt embedded with a trio of Texan teenage girls – Britney, Aaloni, and Autumn – over one summer, watching but never judging as they fill their hours by drinking, hooking up with boys, firing guns, and taking treacherous joyrides.
“There is no normal in teenage years. We’re all confused,” one of the three astutely remarks at the outset, if perhaps unaware how uniquely bleak her and her pals’ particular circumstances really are.
Teens the world over rebel and do some of the things depicted here, but these young girls are not merely pushing parental boundaries with their actions; they may be symptomatic of the patterns of abuse inflicted upon them.
If the debauchery of drinking and smoking speaks for itself, the subject soon enough shifts to boys, and each of the girls has their fair share of stories about being abused both by boys a few years older and the grown adults entrusted to protect them.
“Where are the parents?,” you’re bound to ask. Some are present, others appear only in passing, some are alcoholics, and in the case of Aaloni’s mother, she often seems more like a sister than a mother, swearing like a sailor if also expressing clear concern for her daughter’s future.
The fast-painted picture is one of a trio slipping through the societal cracks, and sadly only an example of the many more young girls left to fend for themselves in a world seemingly at peace with seeing them disposed of.
The bittersweet truth is that the girls are rather bonded by their trauma, each speaking frankly about the power men hold over them, whether a result of gaslighting or sheer physical intimidation, where saying “no” is neither easy nor necessarily effective. The psychological layers of abuse may be more “subtle” than the outright physical ones, but no less damaging.
These forces conspire to rob the girls of themselves, and so what perhaps passes for hope here is that each still seems to be feeling; they haven’t yet been numbed into a stupor by their dire circumstances, incredibly. But with such fraught starts to their lives, how can anyone expect them, and others like them, to have any chance as adults?
The ease with which issues seem to slide off their backs in that typically aloof teenage way – particularly when a frank discussion about rape effortlessly slaloms into chit-chat about an upcoming party – belies the fact that their abuse will fundamentally shape how they perceive and engage with the world.
As if the material isn’t inherently disconcerting enough, the filmmakers’ coverage is intimate to the extent that audiences would be forgiven for lamenting their lack of intervention in some of the film’s more upsetting incidents. Such is the dilemma of documentary filmmaking.
Outside of ethical debates, it’s shocking just how close the filmmakers get to the girls throughout, and how utterly unfussed they seem about the camera’s presence. Then again, today’s youth is so thoroughly au fait with being captured on camera at any errant moment that it may feel quite organic. Their willingness to expose themselves with such a lack of self-consciousness is nevertheless staggering.
In the case of some boys they hang out with who freely snort cocaine on camera at a party however, of course unaware the footage would ever end up streamed at Sundance, that openness may come back to bite them (though helpfully, none of the subjects featured are credited by their surnames).
In all its devastation and occasional moments of levity, Cusp powerfully depicts a particularly painful rite of adolescence. As the story is left to continue off the frame, we can only hope things have improved for Britney, Aaloni, and Autumn, even while firm in the knowledge that they may be much worse today.
Beyond the window into teenage life Hill and Bethencourt are granted, they also make their best efforts to render the Texan cicada summer in visually enticing terms, framing-up the orange sunsets with an agreeably cinematic flair. On the aural side, it’s worth noting the presence of several needle drops from late rapper Lil Peep, a tangential yet pointedly haunting nod to the self-destructive potential these subjects must grapple with.
This almost unbearably intimate documentary observes the troubled lives of three teenage girls in Texas with detached observationalism, but sharp editing shapes it into an empathetic whole.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more film rambling.
