The boys in blue ... and red
Boys State
Cast: Steven Garza, Ben Feinstein, René Otero, Robert Macdougall Directors: Amanda Mcbaine and Jesse Moss Duration: 1 h 49 m Available on: Apple TV+
Three summers ago in Austin, Texas, a thousand or so rising U. S. high school seniors participated in a mock legislature for youth leaders and made national headlines, voting to secede from the Union. It was, of course, a toothless vote, made during an annual gathering known as Boys State, one of many such programs for precocious male adolescents run by the American Legion in nearly every U. S. state, along with its sister organization Girls State.
Nevertheless, documentarians Amanda Mcbaine and Jesse Moss thought that development — entirely theoretical but perhaps telling about some disturbance in the zeitgeist — was interesting.
The very next year, they arranged to make a fly- onthe- wall documentary, Boys State, about the 2018 Texas assembly. Centring on the campaigns of two fake political parties, Federalists and Nationalists, and the subsequent, culminating election, the film presents a camplike atmosphere that turns out to be, in some ways, not that different from what you might expect: a bit of rowdiness/silliness — someone floats an abortive party platform banning cargo shorts — mostly conservative, lots of talk about gun rights, and an overlay of nerdy intensity that swings between endearing and grating.
But the four boys on whom Mcbaine and Moss focus bring some nuance and surprise to this fascinating look at leadership-in-training.
There’s Ben Feinstein, a bilateral amputee on prosthetic legs who is a model of perseverance, good cheer and slick demagogy; the liberal, fish-out-of-water transplant from Chicago, René Otero; and Robert Macdougall, whose honesty about his own embrace of political expediency — another word for lying to get elected — is less refreshing than alarming.
But the film really revolves around Steven Garza, the Nationalist candidate for “governor” who bucks the teen gathering’s conservative leaning with a platform of universal background checks for gun purchases and other leftie planks.
Garza is going places, it seems clear, and many may find themselves hoping to see him pursue some form of public service.
Boys State is a portrait of the country in microcosm: divided, but not yet irredeemably lost. ΠΠ••