Film Review: Miss Juneteenth
“Juneteenth” is the date and title commemorating the 1865 emancipation of the people who were enslaved in the United States. It is an annual celebration that takes place, as the name suggests, on June 19th.
In the small town of Fort Worth, Texas, the impending Miss Juneteenth pageant brews excitement in the air. For the fortunate teenaged girl who wins, the title offers the promise of a full scholarship to a college of her choice; an opportunity not found easily in the impoverished town, and especially not by its disenfranchised Black community.
Many years have passed since Turquoise Jones (Nicole Beharie) was crowned Miss Juneteenth. Her college opportunity was seemingly obstructed by the obstacles of her own life, most likely the birth of her now-fifteen-year-old daughter Kai (Alexis Chikaeze). Turquoise is now a single mother working two jobs to support herself and her daughter. She has worked and saved tirelessly, gathering the money to enter Kai into the pageant, who is now fifteen, and old enough to compete.
What unfolds next, is the quiet conflict of wills between Kai and her mother. Turquoise and Kai have a beautiful, understanding and close relationship. However, there is a complete and frictional dissonance between what’s important to Kai, and what her mother thinks is important to Kai. Kai wants to spend time with her boyfriend, and practice dancing in order to one day join a dance troupe. She dislikes the regiment and traditionalism of the pageant and its preparations and is unenthusiastic in all of her preparations. Her mother steers her away from her boyfriend and dance, pushing her towards focusing on her schoolwork and practicing her talent performance for the pageant: a reading of Maya Angelou’s Phenomenal Woman.
Turquoise’s wishes are clear: she wants her daughter to win, attend college, and succeed without the obstacles Turquoise had herself. Turquoise wants the best future she can imagine for Kai, but only through the projection of her own dreams. Even Turquoise’s encouragement of Kai to practice Phenomenal Woman is because she won the pageant with that very same talent.
Kai’s circumstances appear to be a direct reflection of the obstacles Turquoise faced. Kai’s boyfriend (who Turquoise does not seem to trust Kai to spend time alone with) represents the possibility of her falling pregnant like her mother, and not being able to complete her college education. Turquoise also remarks that the Urban Dance Kai loves reminds her of strip-dancing, which Turquoise herself worked on for some time, which she is uneasy about.
Miss Juneteenth is a beautiful, warm story about the difficulty of balancing current adolescent wishes, with past adolescent regrets. Though the plot does amble around the half-way mark, it does not make for a difficult or dull watch with its authentic characters and relationships.
The quiet unspoken tension of disdain for the treatment of Black Americans frames and surrounds the entire film, a tension I can never myself hope to truly understand but am thrilled to see is now being expressed more and more often in film.
How magical it is to see a story so rarely told. The microphone must keep being held to voices like these.
3.5 stars
Miss Juneteenth is showing in Australian cinemas (except Victoria) from October 8th.