Every Mother's Son

AMERICAN PROMISE (B+) - This vanity project, in which two Brooklyn parents film their son and his pal from kindergarten to twelfth grade, is as good an indictment and celebration of the American education system as you get in documentaries on the subject.

Idris, is a cute, charming young man who cowers through adolescence under the tight supervision of his Type-A parents, filmmakers Joe Brewster and Michele Stephenson (the dad is a psychiatrist, major red flag). He tests well from the beginning, and his parents lay high expectations on him, hammering him with lessons even while running to catch the subway. (Dad suggests early on that he hasn't been controlling enough in pushing his son; he chastises him for being "lazy" on the basketball court. Mom laments, "I just wish he had half the drive I had at his age.") His buddy Seun comes from a more hard-scrabble background, more tested by tragedy, and he initially seems a little slower and thicker. His parents are stern, too, but they're more nurturing of his own sport, martial arts.

The boys hit a wall at the elite Dalton academy before middle school. Seun has learning issues. His mom certainly can't afford the $30,000 tutor his classmates' parents hire. Idris will eventually go on ADD meds. Both are made aware of their blackness, especially the dreadlocked Seun; it turns out that nearly every one of the handful of the African-American boys who go through Dalton fails to make it to graduation and transfers instead (not so much with the girls of color). Idris is also caught in the middle, because while white girls won't give him the time of day, others accuse him of "acting white." (He can't get a girl or a cab.)

I'm a sucker for "7-Up"-type films that show people aging and evolving over decades. It's fun to see these boys start out as innocent kindergartners and bloom into unique young men. But beyond that gimmick, these parents, who are open to accusations of exploiting their own son, provide a valuable service by helping the rest of us identify with the challenges of growing up in a world that doesn't welcome you with open arms. And it's refreshing to see Brewster and Stephenson lay bare their own parental mistakes for all to see.

"American Promise" is streaming for another week on PBS.org as part of its POV offerings.

MOTHER OF GEORGE (C+) - A lovely but disappointing drama about an old-world culture agonizing over a young couple's pressure to produce a son.

Ayodele and his bride, Adenike, celebrate a traditional Nigerian wedding in Brooklyn, and by traditional I mean mostly sexist. The pressure is on immediately to produce a son. But nothing's clicking biologically, and as time goes on Adenike's mother-in-law is beside herself. She eventually proposes a creative solution to her daughter-in-law, one that would keep the gene pool consistent.

Would such a secret be harmless? Or would it tear a couple apart?

Director Andrew Dosunmu, in his second feature, is more interested in imagery than drama and character development. He's enamored of framing scenes so that the people Adenike talks to are out of the shot. She and other female characters are leered at by the camera as if they were models or tchotchkes. The spectacular colors pop 3-D-like as if they were shot by Godard on mushrooms. The yellows, especially, are dazzling, even in the many food scenes. The traditional clothing gleams in near-neon. Even a snippet of Adenike hanging laundry is depicted as high art, with a vivid blue-and-gold towel flapping away to the strains of dour opera.

But neither these sensual images nor a beautiful ending can salvage the sludgy story that too often borders on melodrama. Dosunmu takes a great idea but can't elevate the screenplay beyond the mere two-dimensional. It's a gallant miss.