Boys State (2020) User Reviews

A depressing view into democracy

[gbill-74877 · 8/10 · 23 September 2020]

In going to 'Boys State,' young men get a chance to see firsthand how the two-party political system in America works; in watching this documentary about it, we get a chance to see just how dangerously flawed it is. Setting aside the deeply conservative views of many of the predominantly white Texans and the alarm they cause on their own, we see many disturbing things: the desire to be on the winning side being more important than the policies in the platform, the need to deceive to run for office, how whipping people into a frenzy by chanting slogans is easier and more powerful than confronting difficult issues with the nuance they require, an undercurrent of race bias, and the use of social media and innuendo to smear the opponent.

One young fellow, Ben Feinstein, is incredibly charismatic, articulate, and intelligent - but we also see him consistently takes the low road as a party campaign chairman, which is unfortunate given his talents. The kid who is genuinely honest and seeks to understand the others and find pragmatic middle ground as a gubernatorial candidate, Steven Garza, is what politics desperately needs more of, but we see how difficult it is for someone like him to succeed. (Though as a side note, having Napoleon as a hero is an odd choice given the death and suffering attributable to him). It's a well-made documentary, with lots of candid moments and behind the scenes interviews, but I have to say, it's depressing too.

Irresistible.

[cliftonofun · 9/10 · 23 August 2020]

It is easy to engage with the characters and politics of this film. You can get mad. You can yell at the screen. You can shake your head in dismay. You can stand up and cheer. But I guarantee you one thing: you cannot sit back and ignore what these Texan adolescents teach us. About our nation. About our politics. About ourselves. Steven Garza and his peers reminded me that politics don't have to define us, even if we let that happen far too often. I walked away momentarily hopeful that my kids could stand for something and that I could do the same...and also mindful that false binaries are super tempting for all of us. I wish every documentary managed this kind of storytelling and nuance.

Boy State--teenagers, politics and the flourishing life.

[ricardouriegas · 8/10 · 4 April 2020]

"This is the most interesting conversation I have ever had in the festival". This was my neighbor sitting next to me at the movie theater in Salt Lake City, Utah. We were discussing our visions for flourishing lives prior to watching Boy State, the Grand Jury Prize best documentary winner at Sundance Film Festival. Little did we know, Boy State, a political coming-of-age picture, revolved around a vision of the flourishing life too.

Boy State was directed by Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, collaborators of the 2014 acclaimed indie production The Overnighters, known for its "disquieting moral complexity" .

Boy State tells the story of four 17-year-olds at the 2018 one-week summer program with the same name organized by American Legion. In this program, high school juniors play mock politics: assume randomly assigned party membership, write platforms, run campaigns, and celebrate elections for public office at the local, county and state level. With that, Moss and McBaine again delivered a morally disquieting film--not for nothing, The Hollywood Reporter called it "this year's American Factory" and it sold its distribution rights to Apple and A24 for $12 million, the highest bid for a documentary at Sundance.

Boy State started filming without a defined story before hand. In the way of Honyeland, Academy Award's first nominated film for both best documentary and best international feature, Boy State is filmed in situ. It literally follows three boys without knowing where they might take the story, and as the documentary progresses, a fourth one gets included in the drama. Thus, Boy State first achievement is its cohesive story considering the risks to attain it.

Boy State is also a coming-of-age-story, exploring young psychological and moral growth during a relatively short period of time. As such, Boy State extraordinarily captures a powerful teenager evolution, in a sole week, attesting to the complexity of the teenager soul, but also society's role towards it.

Although it happens in a mock scenario, Boy State reflects our current social stand. For instance, Ross and McBaine capture cynicism, chicanery, and morally dubious ambition-the win-at-all-cost ethos. One boy confesses to hold a campaign far from his convictions because he wants to win. Another justifies his trickery because the fulfillment of his role requires it-he also wants to win. Ironically, a third boy acknowledges that being a good politician in these terms is not necessarily a win. A sort of What-do-you-benefit-if-you-gain-the-whole-world-but_lose-your-own-soul? idea.

In this sense, Boy State also reveals the unchecked nature of society around defect and default. Other reviews have complained on how the film fails to call out this attitudes but precisely this gives Boy State's its disquieting aura. It provokes to wonder who is responsible to call out injustice or defend virtue. As the absent program's monitors in the film, are there, or should there be, any moral overseers?

Boy State is also optimistic, particularly regarding growing and learning from triumph and defeat. For instance, one boy matures to understand the value in diversity, despite his uniform upbringing and context; a talented African-American orator emerges victorious after deceitful portrayals of his political exercise; and the fourth boy included later in the film actually swims upstream to gain both candidacy for the highest office in the program, and the viewers hearts and minds. In fact, it is inspiring to witness his capacity to reconcile opposing political perspectives-for some, clear statements of good and evil.

However, the most positive connotation in Boy State is the healthy potential of discursive spaces for contention and representation of interests. Without such spaces, our increasingly pluralistic communities, defending different, and at times incompatible, visions of desirable lives would turn violent. Plural representation allows these contending visions to prove their worthiness or corroborate their meaninglessness. Whether this is what our current political arrangements promote is a debate for another time; nonetheless, Boy State shows how iterative opportunities to discuss contending visions of flourishing lives can inform the search for the common good and truth.

As most documentaries premiered at Sundance, therefore, Boy State is more than a feature film. It is a snapshot of the sensitive youth that will define the political arena in times to come. It is a provocative story about young potential and social responsibility; to the upcoming generations that will shape the future; to our pluralistic societies that deserve and need spaces for deliberation and representation; and to political engagement. In other words, Boy State is a discussion of visions of flourishing lives.

The Boys Are Not Alright

[stephenstephenbyrne · 8/10 · 8 January 2021]

This is simultaneously the most funny and most terrifying movie of 2020.

I gave it an 8 but I could not stomach it

[robinparker311 · 8/10 · 4 October 2020]

Out of fairness to the documentarian I think this deserves an 8, because it is a very well-made documentary but personally, I found it impossible to watch. Some of these boys (and I know this is Texas, a very macho/conservative leaning state) make me think "this is what's wrong with today's GOP". The boys who showed so much machismo seemed to fare much better than the low key, kinder & simply, from my perspective, nicer boys. I'm sure you can tell by now that I am a liberal minded individual (and am therefore glad that there are no comments available on this review) & I cannot say that it's a not a well-made documentary but you had better have a stomach for macho, 17-year-old a-holes if you think you're going to enjoy this. Personally, I find it unbelievable that Cory Booker & President Clinton succeeded in this 'competition', but maybe it's not just the macho who survive? I can't watch the end of it so I don't know.

Gloomy Rose of Texas

[southdavid · 7/10 · 12 November 2020]

Another documentary on Apple TV was "Boys State" about a Texas Government themed Summer camp (for the want of a better term) that seems so alien to me, from the other side of the Atlantic and was in not quite equal parts both depressing and optimistic.

A thousand boys, from across Texas come together with the aim of building a representative Government. This involves various elections for the roles and organisational work as the boys have been split into two arbitrary teams. They then "vote" on state leadership. The documentary follows several key characters who make up the campaigns.

Its important to try and distinguish the documentary itself from the subject matter. In which case directors Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss did a great job in picking some of the key characters in this early on and staying with them as they went through their journey. The subjects open up to the camera about their true feelings, so they can be juxtaposed with their actions. There can be issues of bias, with a documentary and you never really know for sure, but here it feels like the stories natural heroes and villains come from their actions and not who they were before.

Turning to the subject matter, it's depressing how quickly the young men in this film abandon any thought of achievement, or betterment of the state (however hypothetical) in favour of "winning". How rapidly compromise and debate is cast aside for memes and racism, and how successful they can be. Conviction in your beliefs can be a wonderful trait, but there's something scary and sad about the way some of these kids speak about their opinions, given their relatively little life experience. There are moments of hope though, mostly revolving around Stephen Garza, a second-generation Mexican American who speaks to the difficult audience about immigration issues and gun control and wins some consensus and support.

Rather than wanting to change the world, it appears the majority of these kids just want to know how to beat it. It's not the documentaries fault, but it is depressing.

Maybe there's hope for us

[marc_baker1 · 9/10 · 15 August 2020]

Halfway in, I had to check to make sure this was a documentary. I don't know how the filmmakers lucked into one of their subjects but kudos and I'm glad I got to see the results.

This doc definitely has a slant to it but I think it's major theme of "change through listening" is universal.

Well done.

An excellent documentary that looks at American politics through a fresh lens!

[omahonyjason · 7/10 · 1 January 2021]

Oh, man. As an expatriate Irish man living in the US, this movie was a trip. It's an excellently shot treat of cinema verité. It looks at the dark underbelly of American politics but does so with a fresh and interesting new perspective.

The documentary is a political coming of age set in "Boys State", Texas. For the uninitiated, that's a participatory program for teenage, male students where everyone has the opportunity to become a part of the operation of his local, county, and state government. The program, which is run by American Legion Boys State, exposes participants to the rights and privileges, the duties and the responsibilities, of a franchised citizen.

The training is objective and practical, with city, county, and state governments operated by the students elected to the various offices. The documentary focuses on a number of the boys as they sought political office.

Because of seemingly unlimited access, the documentary was amply able to shine a light on both the burnished, sunny side and the seething, avaricious side of America and to put both on display for the world to see!

The bright side of America breathes life into opportunity. Bringing kids to a camp and honing their public speaking skills and political debating skills is just amazing. And to do it in a manner that brings kids like Steven, who came from a disadvantaged background, is a genuinely beautiful thing.

But then you have the dark side of America which bubbles to the surface as extreme privilege and an entitled attitude which is just horrible. Unfortunately it isn't restricted to adult politicians and, even in a documentary about kids, that entitlement reduced politics to a binary "us against them" process.

Because Boys State is among the most respected and selective educational programs of government instruction for high school students, it's expressly meant to reflect real life. As such, the binary "us against them" process wasn't helped by the adults splitting the kids into two parties and having primaries. I know that happens in the US but it doesn't happen in any other democratic country in the world. It seemed such a missed opportunity to me. Couldn't all those wonderfully brilliant kids have been tasked with finding a solution rather than just mirroring the broken reality?

That being said, the purpose of the documentary wasn't to uncover solutions, rather it was to just let the process speak for itself. And that it most certainly did.

The film reflected one of the great unspoken facts of American life - everyone basically agrees about everything here. Or, at least, all the things that matter. Everyone here is, for the most part, a nationalist. And everyone here is, for the most part, a capitalist.

To use an analogy: there are a handful of different types of drinks: alcohol, water, soda, fruit juice etc. Within those categories there are subcategories. Soda contains cola, soda waters, lemon and lime flavored drinks etc. And those subcategories can be broken down into specific brands, Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola, and RC Cola, for example, in the Cola subcategory.

While other countries have genuine debates about the advantages of water over wine or vice versa. In the US, everyone has seemingly agreed that Cola is the only drink worth having! Americans argue vehemently about whether Pepsi or Coke is better, and all the various different other drinks and, in fact, even all the various different other colas are relegated to an irrelevance before the debate even begins!

It's a two party system here and everything outside the tent, i.e. the vast majority of an entire beautiful spectrum of possibility, is simply resigned to the dustbin!

And, because of that, what happens in real life, also happened in the movie. The young politicians eschewed positions in favor of slogans! Real debate didn't happen. Because there wasn't really a difference. There was nothing to debate. Cola is cola. And whether Pepsi is better than Coke or vice versa is really only a matter of personal choice.

Instead, US politicians - in real life as in the film - weaponized slogans and attacked perceived personality flaws in their opponents. Both sides were guilty of that, most obviously in Rene and Ben. Especially Ben! I found myself wondering, "WTF is wrong with that kid? Regan dolls and an insane lust for power?!" But both were at fault. Each only cared about winning in the narrowest, most binary sense possible.

Rene had a great line about Ben at the end, "I don't hate the man. Never will. I think he's a fantastic politician. But I don't think 'fantastic politician' is a complement either."

That was a caustic summation! And entirely accurate. I loved it! And yet Rene was equally willing to use every dirty trick in the book to get ahead. And stay ahead. And he was king of ad hominem attack - as evidenced by that wonderfully cutting final remark. I think that kid'll go far in American politics. But I don't think that's a complement either!

Anyway! The film just about blew my mind! Great documentary! Outstanding film! But, my oh my, I hope none of those kids (except Steven) end up running the country!

Fantastic, easily

[scout-19481 · 10/10 · 4 July 2020]

This movie moved me. I laughed, I cried... it made me think about my Boys State. Shout out to Steven Garza, if there's a protagonist I want everyone to know it's him. This is the best doc I've seen seen Black Fish. Watch it if you can.

The game is the game

[mzgriest · 7/10 · 5 September 2020]

Depressing and disturbing with occasional glimmers of hope.

Shows how quickly current political culture pervades the mindset and morals of 16-17 year old boys.

Film leans toward a reality tv vibe.

Note: majority of "campaign speeches" focus on guns and pro-life statements.

Scary!

[marcuswatson-40103 · 8/10 · 18 August 2020]

This is a very good expose of the indoctrination of future fascists in this country and the incubation of toxic masculinity. The only bright spots in this otherwise bleak peak at our future are Steven Garza and Rene Otero. They are two young men of integrity.

A socially valuable and surprisingly compelling documentary

[eddytorres · 27 January 2022]

Personally, I attended Nevada Boys State in the summer prior to my senior year old of high school in 2013. So this documentary was quite exhilarating as a vehicle for helping me revisit and reevaluate my time during that eventful week; what I learned about government, leadership and male friendship. I'm grateful for my time there. I really would like to hear about the reaction of other Boys State alumni to the film.

I was amazed by how compelling the documentary ended up being, it was filmed very professionally while still being fly on the wall, it wasn't scripted, so the fact that they chose to focus on the boys who ended up going surprisingly far and crossed paths at times made for a compelling narrative that came out of serendipity and manages effectively to make you emotionally invested in a mock government election.

I will admit I thought the parts of the film where we hear about the boys' own subjective opinions and perceptions of real political figures and institutions to be quite unnecessary and cringeworthy but they were easy to skip over and didn't drag it too much. I also wish we could have heard more from the real adult organizers of Boys State to get a sense of what their vision for the program even is and how they view the occasional chicanery that takes place there.

I really wish we had a similar documentary for Girls State, as it would be interesting to see how teen girls process modern politics in contrast to their male counterparts, maybe in a more swing state like Georgia or Arizona. Regardless I really enjoyed my experience for the film and I'm glad for its success.

Disappointing

[rttcbennett · 6/10 · 30 August 2020]

I understand that this was filmed in Texas where I currently (unfortunately) live, so I understand the environment these children were exposed to. The history taught in the schools here is very biased towards a right wing platform. The New York Times had an excellent article along with excerpts should you wish to clarify. The way the film was edited was misleading, fool that I am I expected a documentary to be more straightforward. I had great hopes pinned on the young man who was a great speaker and who encompassed a sense of hope as well as integrity. There was no happy ending. It saddens me that lying, cheating and slandering has been passed down to our children as the best way to win. The bullying through social media was especially egregious. I am truly scared for our kids and this country if we don't get off the evil path we are on soon.

I weep for our nation

[phillip-ayscue-135-643247 · 2/10 · 30 August 2020]

Small sample but the movie displays young adults not willing to reform politics but have learned the most awful characteristics of current politicians. Insightful but in a terrible way

I did not expect to like this so strongly: MASTERFULLY MADE DOCUMENTARY

[cruzarts-73946 · 10/10 · 16 August 2020]

After watching the trailer, LIBERAL ME was fraught with questions. The documentarians wisely anticipated them and provided answers right away -- but not directly: a lot of participants had the same questions as I.

I went through an entire gamut of emotion watching this: mental challenges and torture. BOYS STATE rather easily won me over for its observation, balance and unbelieveable coherence amid the chaos of chronicling 1100 teen males playing politics for one week in Texas. I don't know how many subjects were followed before whittling down to the featured voices in this documentary, but they hit the jackpot.

Plenty of whooping and push-ups, the testosterone overdose is unavoidable - even down to one candidate proclaiming "Our masculinity will not be compromised." The lack of females was infuriating -- Boys Town absolutely felt like a training ground where males do not consider female voices or concerns.

There are subjects who are already informed, dignified and striving for social improvement; which I found heartening. There are also those who have picked up tactics of crowd motivation, manipulation and the mechanics of smear, and that's chilling.

Girls have a similar program conducted separately. That was my main issue. Run by the American Legion, the organization of mostly right-wing veterans hasn't seen fit to integrate the two. In BOYS STATE, teenage males are spouting misinformation about abortion and they aren't countered because of the overwhelmingly conservative leaning of the Texas teens - including one who admits he is pro-choice, but closeted about it.

There are speeches; but if there are debates, they aren't shown. I'm guessing there are not, because of the 12th hour lies that were told.

BOYS STATE is an astonishing look into one particular event and its participants. Although I was curious about the Left/Right leanings of past election winners, the makers of this doc kept it lean, pertinent and well-paced.

Past Boys State participants include Samuel Alito and Cory Booker. Watching this almost felt like seeing a future Obama or Beto O'Rourke who hopes for unity and consensus, and a future Karl Rove or Mitch McConnell who eagerly sacrifices principle for victory.

I attended Louisiana Boys State in 1975 and Loved It

[EntropyFashion · 10/10 · 21 August 2020]

I was not your typical joiner... I had shoulder length hair, played in a rock band but was also on student council as VP and Key Club etc.. I cared but butted heads with authority, gently. Upon arrival at BS, the militarism and gung-ho stuff put me off for a day but then I grew to respect and love it. I bought into the entire program and made friends and allies and ended up as the minority whip, giving the nomination speech for our government and passing several bills through Congress. It was a great experience and I was lucky to be a part of it.

Boys State

[marmar-69780 · 7/10 · 22 August 2020]

Boys State is a nice documentry about a subject that i dont care at all.Politics were never interesting thing to me ,i found it to be completly boring and that only idiots and scam can become politicians but this this made me to open my eyes a little and realise that there are also some good people in it that are unfortunetly overshadowed by corrupt and money grabbing ones,.When we talk about quality of this project it is obvious that it was made with a lot of care for its subject and people that is representing and for that it deserves a plus.Boys State was good documentry ,im not also usually fan of them but this one was good

Strange, Entertaining, Chilling

[david-meldrum · 8/10 · 4 April 2022]

What a strange film this is, and what a strange set of events it shows us. Having elections and UN councils for groups of children is a pretty normal way of teaching them about such things as political and democratic processes, but this is altogether something different. I'm sure the aims of Boys (and Girls) State were laudable when first established, but now it seems to be a brazen, testosterone-fuelled bear pit where boys seem to learn the lesson that lying is a necessary good in politics and the other side is always to be demonised. It's largely white, it reeks of privilege and it's as if no one involved bothered to read Lord Of The Flies.

The filmmakers do a great of finding characters - likeable and not so much - to follow, and one of them (Steven) seems like a genuinely impressive young man, the sort you hope might just go on to some sort of political career. It is entertaining, but it's an ultimately sad conclusion that at least part of the reason American politics is as it is, is because children are trained in those ways from youth.

worth

[djurrepower · 6/10 · 7 December 2020]

Im glad i watched this docu, it was well worth my time. in terms of how much i liked it, mediocre. looked away multiple times at the 2/3rds mark, but it regained my interests in the final stretch. overall an original watch with its topic, and im glad we got to see the workings of this event. what interested me the most was the personalities we got to see. mostly rene really left an positive impression.

6/10: good

Interesting politics simulation

[Movi3DO · 8/10 · 27 March 2021]

An interesting documentary on Apple TV+ about 1200 seventeen year olds Texan boys who came to the Boys State event to build a hypothetical government from scratch.

Now as unique as the plot sound, the story actually reflected a lot about what was happening in modern politics. The boys were separated into two parties, and the voting process was similar to one in the US. The boys discussed a lot about common issues, as well as using political tactics that were seen before. Since this is Texas, many of the boys were conservative and one of the biggest topics was gun control. The speeches made by the boys were also similar to those real life political campaign speeches.

For me, I dislike politics and cannot stand campaign speeches for how generic they all are. So throughout the movie was usually bored at the issues that the boys discussed, as well as the speeches, except for one. One of them made a very good speech that actually convinced me.

Toward the end, the movie definitely got better as more drama appeared and things spiced up. That was when the movie got me really hooked up to see who would win as the governor.

Overall, an interesting documentary that showed a lot of how some young Americans view politics, and these boys might become the future of politics. 7.5/10.

Interesting documentary

[StarOpus · 7/10 · 27 August 2020]

There was a strange biased in this documentary unfortunately. With the portrayal of Steven Garza you assume he's going to win. Obviously this didn't capture what was actually happening so the filmmakers failed in that department, just like the media fail in that respect. There should have been a greater focus on Eddie.

I also think it's a shame that the two sexes aren't mixed. That would make for an interesting dynamic. If they make a Girls State I'll be very interested to see the differences.

The kids are alright, it's the system that needs an overhaul

[Sir_AmirSyarif · 8/10 · 23 August 2020]

Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine's 'Boys State' documents thousands of Texan boys as they participate in the American Legion's 2018 Boys State camp where they got to learn about American democracy by organizing political parties and running a mock government. In a tone that is at once bleak and optimistic, frightening and hopeful, the documentary works as a strong allegory for today's political climate - in all parts of the world, but, of course, especially in America - offering up the nuanced notion the system needs to be turned upside down, and only the younger generation can do that.

An Above Average Strange Doc

[alindsayal · 6/10 · 16 December 2021]

So the last film of London's Sundance Film Festival 2020 is the documentary Boys State and I have watched it and here is my review for it. The premise of the documentary looks at a group of young men in Texas who come together to build a representative government from the ground up.

So onto the things I like about this documentary, first of all I find it fascinating that a place like this exists. If you always wondered how young people in america get into politics then this documentary gives you an idea of that and it is interesting.

I also liked how this film doesn't show every person in the best of lights, it looks at the different beliefs and motivations of a few of the people. It seems to be a reflection of modern politics and they look at how maybe being honest isn't always the best policy.

But I would also argue that this film is kind of bias and clearly favours one side over the other. It portrays one person in particular Steven as a shining light and every other person really gets a negative portrayal giving you reasons not to like any of them which was a let down especially for the subject matter.

Also I will say that if you are not well versed or interested in US politics this isn't going to interest you as much. For me it took some time to get going and I think it isn't until they really get debating that the film hits its strides and becomes particularly interesting.

Overall, I think the enjoyment of this film will depend on your interests, I found it okay and I liked certain aspects of it. But my lack of interest in the subject held it back for me and made it a bit of a forgettable experience.

Rating - 6/10.

What's to love?

[galiberal · 3/10 · 21 August 2020]

As a documentary it's plain and boring. As a window into 17 yo boys testosterone-fueled political views it's terrifying. If any of these kids actually get elected to office this country is in serious trouble. Very serious trouble.

a potent mixture of hopeful and disheartening

[matthewssilverhammer · 9/10 · 11 December 2020]

An odd and hilarious experiment: bring together hundreds of 17-year-old Texan boys and have them create a democratic government from the ground up. The handful of boys that rise to the narrative's surface are better characters than most any of the fictional ones in 2020. The events that follow are a potent mixture of hopeful and disheartening, as we see the foibles of the American political machine infiltrate the otherwise noble desires for goodness and equality.