In Cusp, an intimate and heartfelt look at girlhood in America, Filmmakers Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt create a safe space for teenage girls to open up and discuss their hardship with remarkable authenticity and sincerity.
With Cusp, which has just premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival as part of the U.S. Documentary Competition, filmmaking duo Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt sign a promising debut feature documentary.
“There is no normal in teenage years.”
Early on, we are introduced to a trio of Texas teenage girls – Autumn, Brittney and Aaloni – who spend their summer hanging out together, partying with friends and visibly overindulging in drink and drugs. Audiences might feel like passive smokers or a little bit high in front of the large collection of such clips. Indeed, Cusp seems to start off slow but when it finally does, it proves terrific in offering us an unfiltered access to its characters as they express their hardships and torments.
Bit by bit, the filmmakers start laying bare the issues and trauma that those girls are grappling with. The absence of a father, a mom accomplice in letting a friend of hers molesting her own daughter or parents with drinking issues are some of the burdens the young girls are bearing, as they are struggling to find their identity, acquire self-esteem and self-confidence.
“It’s scary being alone and it’s scary thinking too.”
Against that backdrop, one understands the challenges of this trio of 15 to 17-year-old girls who are facing new problems such as boy’s possessiveness or heartaches. Through the film, audiences also have the opportunity to observe them up close as they try to cope with the hardships of losing their virginity as well as the culture of rape. With admirable sincerity and discernment, they regret that “girls are scared to say no” and that anyway, “guys are more powerful”.
The film is at its best when granting us such a remarkably intimate access to those girls. Filmmakers Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt thrive at creating a safe space for their characters to share intimate moments and talk about themselves and their concerns in front of the camera, in such an open and honest way. All the credit goes to the duo of filmmakers who never judge any of their characters. The love and respect they have for them is palpable.
Some of the film’s most stirring material might be a tense and poignant scene in which one of the girls confronts her father on the day of her little sister’s birthday, reproaching him not to care about his daughters who, anyway, do not love her dad.
Artistically, on top of the spectacular intimacy if offers and its splendid observational aspect, the film has a metaphorical recurring image which proves captivatingly beautiful. By filming much of the scenes at dawn or sunset, the filmmakers capture the beauty and energy of this unsettled moment of the day which mirrors the state of the lives of the teenage girls we are following.
Even though the final sequence may look a little artificial by putting together a collage of footage from many other scenes filmed with the girls – which did not make their way into the final cut of the film, anchored by an uplifting score, it still allows the filmmakers to conclude on a positive note, showing that there is still hope for young teenage girls struggling to get their lives together.
Overall, despite the time Cusp takes to start off, it ends up as a strong, intimate, heartfelt documentary which benefits from exceptional characters and a duo of talented, respectful and big-hearted filmmakers.
