Critic Reviews

There’s artistry here in how a boy’s world is coming to a close, an elegy for what was and a welcome invitation to see what could yet be.

This coming-of-age film captures the exuberance of childhood even as it shows the gradual encroachment of outside social pressures.

It is Baig’s vision that makes We Grown Now sing in a way that is totally incomparable. Every shot, every musical choice, everything that makes a riveting movie is on display and at its very best here.

The power of this film sneaks up on you. It glides from jubilation to heartbreak without missing a beat.

With Smollett, Howery and Merkerson infusing life and depth into the adult characters, and the young actors Blake Cameron James and Gian Knight Ramirez turning in natural and affecting work, “We Grown Now” will resonate with you for a very long time.

Rather than go for the throat, its central friendship makes room for feeling, but also for listening, and watching, and reflection. You may cry or you may not. But the movie is up to far more than making sure you do.

Minhal Baig’s “We Grown Now” is a film masterfully tied to the emotive potential of place.

An unassuming character study set to poetic rhythms makes for an empathetic study of Black life, full of resolve.

Set in the high-rises of the Cabrini-Green housing project in 1992, when the beleaguered complex’s decline was palpable, it sounds like a recipe for doleful poverty-gazing. But in Windy City native Baig’s solid hands, it’s a resolutely poetic, at times even golden-hued portrait of lives unafraid to hope amid growing despair.

Even in its quietest moments, “We Grown Now” feels alive through the kids’ joint triumphant spirit and Baig’s discernible love and care for them.