Homeroom

Nicks’ film is a deft portrait of the power of social movements and the connection between technology and change.

While Homeroom is far more contained in length and scope than a Frederick Wiseman opus, the way editors Rebecca Adorno and Kristina Motwani construct a narrative from a seemingly free-flowing assembly produces a similarly immersive viewing experience, as if one was wandering the school shrouded in an invisibility cloak.

Homeroom’s power in is allowing us — encouraging us — to hear these students out for themselves, bearing witness to political identities in the midst of their formation, still molten and moldable and all the more useful to see for that fact.

The Oakland students — and director Nicks — rise to the demands of overlapping crises. With its vibrant if abbreviated portraits and final scenes of burgeoning activism, Homeroom suggest that kids may not be alright, but they are very much on the case.

Last year waylaid many plans and subverted many intentions. Homeroom is one impressive response to that adversity.

Despite the film’s narrow scope, it’s hard to not be impressed by the political and civic engagement of its teen subjects.

In the end, Homeroom lacks impact, taken as a whole, but anyone who sees it will derive something from the experience.