JAZZY - Mark Reviews Movies

Jazzy, Vertical

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | February 6, 2025

Co-writer/director Morrisa Maltz follows a girl from childhood to adolescence in Jazzy. It was shot over the course of about six years, which means the filmmakers aren't just observing the main character grow up. They're also watching as the movie's young star does the same.

The character is Jasmine, known as "Jazzy" to her family and friends, and played by Jasmine Bearkiller Shangreaux. The actor's aging over the course of the story is subtle at first, but soon enough, she and her character are about 12 years old. It's the only sign, really, that any time here has passed, because so much of the story is just about the everyday routines, worries, and problems faced by children.

In that way, the movie is poignantly accurate. We watch Jazzy go to school, pass notes in class, and hang out with her classmates and a sometimes-rotating group of friends at recess and after school has finished for the day. At home, she spends time with her pets, a rabbit and a cat, and occasionally babysits her little sister when her mother is busy with housework or at her job.

One of the interesting stylistic components of Maltz's directing is how, apart from a pair of notable exceptions, we never really get a good look at any of the adults surrounding Jazzy and her peers. Their voices sound from just off-screen, as teachers explain some subject that Jazzy doesn't really hear while paying attention to her friends around her. We might also catch a glimpse of some relative from behind that adult's back, such as when the mother of one of Jazzy's friends comes into the girl's room to tell her some news that will change everything about the two girls' lives.

What adults say and do, of course, may matter to kids, but it's not in the same way that some conversation, some rumor, or some pointed silence from another child does. The movie's perspective is, for the most part, completely insulated and, as a result, fundamentally compelling.

The story and characters aren't quite as much, however. Most of this revolves around Jazzy's friendship with Syriah (Syriah Fool Head Means). The two share a lot in common. They're both of Lakota heritage, going to a school filled with kids who aren't of that background. We later learn that they're distant relatives, too, although neither girl seems to know or particularly care about that information. Their friendship is almost one of convenience. After Jazzy decides that her previous best friend hasn't paid enough attention to her, she starts spending more and more time with Syriah, who lives down the street from her.

Most of the story, then, simply watches Jazzy as she and Syriah become close, as Syriah suddenly distances herself from the protagonist for reasons Jazzy doesn't understand, and as new friends enter the picture. As time passes and patterns repeat or change, Jazzy has to figure out who her real friends are, how to keep them close, how to deal with a boy who wants to be more than her friend, and how these relationships fit in to person she's growing up to be. The tale, in other words, is malleable, as things so often are when one is a child, but it's far from aimless or formless.

The aim of the screenplay (by Maltz, Andrew Hajek, Lainey Bearkiller Shangreaux, and Vanara Taking) is that simple: to show us how Jazzy grows up amidst the confusion of childhood friendships and the unstoppable movement toward even more confusing adolescence. It's fine enough, mostly because Maltz doesn't care about some kind of overarching plot and only takes interest in capturing moments as they happen. Jazzy and Syriah talk about stuffed animals at length, for example, and later, Jazzy and some different friends spend the day playing at an empty amphitheater, where they talk about how one of the boys in the school band obviously likes her.

The form of the movie, however, is its most noteworthy feature. It does capture some essence of both childhood and that old notion that the kids really do grow up fast. Most of the former comes from that dedication, on the part of Maltz and the cinematographer (also Hajek), to perspective—keeping the camera at the kids' level and sharing their degree of attention. The latter, obviously, comes from watching Shangreaux, who gives a naturalistic performance, grow up in front of us in a relative flash, but it's also how the perspective itself evolves.

There's a climactic sequence in which Jazzy reunites with her larger family, and for the first time, the camera does find an adult to keep in frame. She's Tana (Lily Gladstone), Jazzy's cool aunt (and also the same character at the center of Maltz's previous movie The Unknown Country). The two talk about friendships and boys and other such things, and it's as if, for the first time, what an adult has to say to her actually means something to Jazzy. We know it won't be the last.

The little moments of Jazzy matter, because they're what matter to Jazzy. Maltz effectively communicates that idea and that feeling on a formal level in this almost-experimental bit of filmmaking. On a narrative and thematic level, however, the movie doesn't quite dig deep enough into those ideas to make them into something compelling beyond the filmmaking.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products