LaLee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton

The balance between feeling and distance is never a contradiction here but, rather, the dynamic that makes this film an especially humanistic entry in the Maysles canon.

Its simple, straightforward storytelling makes mincemeat of the idea that, gee, if these people just worked a little harder and got motivated, they, too, could get a piece of the American Dream.

An exemplary work of cinéma vérité that allows its subjects to speak for themselves, traffics neither in pity nor in political grandstanding.

Demonstrates that sometimes letting subjects and the facts speak for themselves can be quietly devastating.

Froemke and Dickson's film opens a window onto rural poverty so dire it's almost inconceivable that it exists in 21st-century America.