Review: Miss Juneteenth

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Turquoise Jones (Nicole Beharie) is a former beauty queen in the Miss Juneteenth pageant. Her life didn't go the way she planned, so now she wants her young daughter Kai (Alexis Chikaeze) to follow in her footsteps. Kai of course, has other aspirations. 

I was very hyped for this film. I saw nothing but praise for it online and especially for Nicole Beharie's performance so I had high hopes. I have to say, I really loved the relationship between Turquoise and Kai. Obviously they have their differences, but there's a lot of love there, and I'm glad they never took it into a place that felt too over the top. Keeping the majority of the POV to Turquoise and her struggles as a single mother who was told she was destined for greatness after winning only for things to not go that route was a good choice. 

This is a good film, but it's not very engaging and I think my expectations were slightly too high. It loses a bit of steam in the middle, even though the final pageant scene really knocks it out of the park. It has one of my favorite shots of 2020 to be honest.

Even though it fell a bit short for me personally, I still think Miss Juneteeth is a film worth seeing. Beharie and Chikaeze give wonderful performances, the latter being her first film, which is a surprise because she feels like such a natural. Not to mention, we could all do with more stories celebrating Juneteenth in general since it is so egregiously left out of so many history books.

Recommended: Yes

Grade: B-

Memorable Quote: "I beat her." - Turquoise Jones (Nicole Beharie)

Comments

  1. Candice FrederickJanuary 26, 2021 at 9:00 AM

    awww man. i absolutely loved this film

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamJanuary 26, 2021 at 6:16 PM

      I think if I had just went into it normally I would've gotten closer to "love" than "like."

      Delete
  2. thevoid99January 26, 2021 at 7:05 PM

    I heard good things about the film though I prefer to wait for it if it comes on TV. I often keep my expectations low to 0. That way, I won't be disappointed.

    ReplyDelete

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