Metacritic reviews

Not only is this documentary a microcosm of the country at large, reflecting real life in the way that charisma and the ability to fire up the masses can make all the difference when it comes to politics, but it also gives us a sense of what the future can look like.

It not only introduces another side of this democratic activity, but does so at the perfect time to highlight its inconsistencies and inequalities, giving these girls the extra opportunity for reflection and growth.

The film’s chief enjoyment is seeing how motivations transform, and character is forged, through the sliding doors of new people, victories and losses, and the sharpening of the young women’s disparate judgments on the genuinely disappointing differences between boys and girls state.

McBaine and Moss offer a celebration of the young women attendees alongside a consideration of the everyday sexism many encounter.

The film’s seven protagonists are the result of McBaine and Moss’s broad and deep interview process. Demographically diverse, the women are immensely watchable and touchingly articulate.

There’s also a fascinating dive into the inequalities that bedevil Boys State and Girls State themselves, reminding us how organizations often embody, at a structural level, some of the very problems they’re ostensibly trying to rectify.

McBain and Moss capture all this with an unobtrusive eye. They have a real grasp of how to capture and frame candid interactions, how to pace this kind of near-reality television drama. It doesn’t hit its ambitious stride, though, until the end.

Girls State gradually moves away from the reality show-like competition baked into its premise in favor of something more interesting and less resolvable.

A documentary that can struggle to tie its young politicos to the outside world, but thrives when tying them to each other.

Girls State, like its predecessor, benefits from strong casting and ample access to the pint-sized political proceedings.