Cusp

In this mesmerizing, revelatory and deeply compassionate film, viewers are left with an indelible impression of girlhood at its most precarious and indomitable.

Like any good sunset, the beauty to be found in “Cusp” is in between the darkness and the light, in the almost imperceptible shades of gray. Most important, it’s found in the bonds the girls have with each other.

Cusp, with its dreamy imagery of golden sunsets and thunder-y twilights, empty Dairy Queen parking lots, and birds taking flight, is a mood-driven piece of work, sensitive to landscape and environment, and the girls' casual comments about rape (just one example) stand in stark contrast.

A portrait of modern girlhood, this documentary ultimately becomes a bleak look at the normalization of sexual abuse among the very victimized young women.

At its best, the documentary’s aura of desolation suggests a verité version of Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show.

In walking the line between asking empathy for these girls and also using them as a sort of cautionary tale, Cusp fails to offer more than a somewhat surface-level understanding of toxic masculinity.