'Cusp' Review
NR
Runtime: 1 Hr and 43 Minutes
Production Companies: Kislevitz Films, Maiden Voyage, Wavelength Productions, The 51 Fund, Cardel Entertainment, Irving Harvey
Distributor: Showtime Documentary Films
Directors: Parker Hill, Isabel Bethencourt
Release Date: November 12, 2021 | November 26 (Showtime)
Theatrical and Showtime
Cusp chronicles one formative year of teenage life for three friends in a Texas town where there’s little to do but party — and where liquor, drugs, and guns are standard recreational accessories. Followed through lazy hangouts, fast-food outings, and bonfire parties, Autumn, Brittney, and Aaloni allow directors Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt to observe intimate moments within their homes and social circles. The film’s raw vérité approach creates a sensitive, multifaceted portrait of adolescent girlhood and the time and place in which these girls experience it.
Cusp must be the hardest documentary I’ve ever had to discuss in my nine-year journey as a film critic. Hell, I don’t think I can give Cusp a rating because of my conflicting feelings towards it. I can’t even use the usual “THE GOOD” or “THE BAD” dividers for the review. There’s only “THE RENDY” because there’s no way to criticize this without speaking from the heart.
In this vérité-style doc, you follow teenage girls Autumn, Brittney, and Aaloni — who are no more than 15 years old — as they live their life to the fullest with no adult supervision. In their rural Texas town, boys and men try to hook up with them and hard drugs and liquor are at their disposal. This doc is so raw and disturbingly hardcore that a Lil Peep song is played during the opening title sequence. If playing Lil Peep isn’t the perfect set-up for the ride ahead, I don’t know what is.
Directors Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt get you invested in these girls right off the bat with their navigation of the fucked up world they reside in. The film starts with footage of one of the girls (I forget who) being completely in love with her boyfriend, who is of the same age. As the film progresses, you get footage of their break-up, and watching it in real-time is shocking. The whirlwind of a teenage romance is always engaging to me, especially when it’s presented in an authentic manner. As far as content goes, it’s the only light area that feels completely genuine, from the real-time reactions of the girl to the relatability of getting your heart broken.
There’s no easy way to say this, but I felt wholly uncomfortable throughout my viewing of Cusp. I’d be lying if I didn’t say this feels exploitative as fuck… because it does. If I had a nickel for every time I asked, “So, they just let these kids do what they’re doing and not like… do anything about it? ” I’d have a dollar. I appreciate Hill and Bethencourt for bringing visibility to these young teenage girls, documenting them as they are: young, careless, and party-going like many other teenage girls in America, as they try to cling to their youth. Yet, as documentarians, you should be able to vocalize certain things when it comes to situations happening on camera. The line between authentic and exploitative can easily be crossed when the filmmaker doesn’t intervene in the dangerous and criminal scenarios these young girls get into. There is footage of the three girls hanging out with predatory, older guys who are well into adulthood. They straight-up discuss how opportunistic men are, especially behind closed doors, as they don’t give a shit about age and try to get with a 15-year-old. The camera captures them at these crazy male-infested parties with drugs like cocaine and heavy liquor lying around. I can turn a blind eye to drugs and alcohol because teenagers are, quite frankly, very stupid and they’re going to experiment regardless. But the way this film displays MEN and how they will do anything to get into an underage girl’s pants is disturbing as hell. There’s a section where one of the men pursues one of the girls; you see them hanging out as a couple and I seriously wanted to puke. I’m like, “Okay, that’s enough evidence to have this man arrested. Are you not going to intervene? Why aren’t you intervening? Why aren’t you calling the fucking cops?”
Cusp delves into detailed discussions of explicit, triggering topics regarding pedophilia, rape, and sexual abuse to name a few. One of the girls discussed how she was raped by her deadbeat dad’s best friend and was completely unphased by it until she lost her court case, which is where she broke down and cried. These girls nonchalantly discuss being molested by men while I’m on the verge of tears wishing better lives for them. The filmmakers fail their subjects by trading meaningful discussions for jaw-dropping, exploitative shock value. As far as its narrative, Cusp goes nowhere. It spends so much time showcasing the absolute terrors and unadulterated craziness that you wish you didn’t have to see. It’s a relatively short movie, yet they pack so much heavy-handed, mature content involving minors that holds little to no substance. By the time I got to a prolonged sequence of one of the girls getting her nipples pierced, I decided to draw the line. At that point, it felt like an endurance test and I felt dirty while watching.
Putting teenagers on camera is bound to make them more performative than usual, and that’s what Cusp suffers from. My conflicting feelings lie within this question: At what point should a filmmaker (or filmmakers) start to be responsible and step in? At what moment should they intervene when there is too much uncomfortable, adult-themed content involved, for the sake of the young subjects who often go unsupervised, while also not ostracizing viewers? The things that Autumn, Brittney, and Aaloni have gone through are present in countless places, not just Texas. These topics are universal, though not discussed very often, especially from the perspective of girls their age. It’s such a slippery slope and this movie fails by showing the viewers exploitative imagery that feels performative. The intensity and heaviness outweighed any moments of genuine humanity.
There should’ve been a way to make a meaningful doc about these girls while putting them on the right course outside of just placing a fucking camera in front of them, showing the most genuinely disturbing things you possibly could.
I don't know whether to call the cops on:
the fucking predatory men who openly hit on and date these teenage girls
the filmmakers for exploiting the teenage girls
or myself for watching a doc that exploits teenage girls
