Teen Angst

Two directions a teenage girl's life can go ... 

SISTERS ON TRACK (B+) - With a big heart, a journeyman filmmaking team embeds itself with a family of three young-teen sisters to show them overcoming the struggles of a single mom as they compete as runners. At first living in a homeless shelter, the family benefits from the generosity of filmmaker Tyler Perry, who puts them up in an apartment.

This allows the Sheppard girls to have a sense of stability and routine. They take advantage of it and thrive as regular teens/tweens dealing with school, sports, boys and thoughts of their futures. Middle child Rainn is the most expressive and appealing of the characters. Older Tai gets a little distracted by a boy and acts out, and little Brooke kind of follows along. What's interesting is that the girls' mother doesn't play a prominent role in the film; instead, by the second half, it's clear that Coach Jean (below right) is the most inspirational and influential figure in each girl's life, and for good reason. She is a relentlessly upbeat but practical teacher and mentor, both when it comes to track and when it comes to planning for the future.

The main problem with the movie is how sloppy it can be at times in helping the viewer navigate the timeline as the filming covers several years. Because the girls are around the age of the transition from middle school to high school, they evolve in looks and style. Their hairstyles change constantly. And because they are sisters, they look alike, and at times it is difficult to tell them apart. 

Nonetheless, directors Tone Grottjord-Glenne and Corinne van der Borch embed seamlessly in this family's life, gaining intimate access that allows the girls' personalities to break through. The result is a hopeful, uplifting story of love and determination and a glimpse of what it's like to be a girl transitioning into young adulthood.

MURDER TO MERCY: THE CYNTOIA BROWN STORY (B) - A matter-of-fact chronicle of an abused teenager who ended up in prison benefits from the diligence of a production that showed up at the point of incarceration in 2004 and stuck through it to the present day. Cyntoia Brown was the victim of sex trafficking when she was 16, and she ended up going to a man's house and shooting him to death with his own gun. (It's debatable whether she did that in self-defense or to rob him while high.)

We only have Brown's side of the story, but it's obvious that she'd been a victim long before she pulled the trigger. We meet her biological mother -- a trailer park drug addict -- and grandmother, who was another cog in a family history of abuse, addiction and mental illness. We also meet her adopted mother, who never gave up on her. 

She was tried as an adult and sentenced to life in prison; an appeal a few years later based on a defense of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder failed. It's left to a parole board in 2019 to give her hope of release. Filmmaker Dan Birman originally produced a documentary about Brown's pimp, who died a year after she was imprisoned, and Birman picked up the project off and on over the next decade. He depicts Brown as a model prisoner and sympathetic figure, though you get the sense he was leaving out some unflattering details. Nonetheless, this is a deeply reported documentary, with advantage of time to chronicle the evolution of a messed-up teenager into a productive adult.