Butler's Cinema Scene

Nicole Beharie, Alexis Chikaeze

“MISS JUNETEENTH” My rating: B

99 minutes | No MPAA rating

“Miss Juneteenth” is simultaneously a heartbreaking character study, a domestic drama and an almost documentary look at a specific community.

It is fueled by a subtle and unforced script by director Channing Godfrey Peoples, utterly believable supporting performances and a riveting lead turn from actress Nicole Beharie, who after a decade guesting on TV series makes her case for movie stardom.

Peoples has set her debut feature in an environment with which she is intimately familiar — a black community in Ft. Worth TX. It’s a world of black cowboys and barbecue and the annual Miss Juneteenth pageant, in which one beautiful and talented young African American woman will be crowned and handed a tuition-free scholarship to the black college of her choice.

In 2004 Turquoise Jones (Beharie) wore that victorious tiara, hoping to join the ranks of lawyers, doctors and educators who were past winners.

It didn’t quite work out. Today she is a waitress/janitor at a bar and rib joint, a job that just barely keeps a roof over her head and that of her 15-year-old daughter Kai (Alexis Chikaeze).

But Turquoise dreams — intensely if not realistically — that Kai will succeed in not only winning the title of Miss Juneteenth but in realizing the life her mama missed out on.

A lesser film would have made the movie a tragedy about the mother trying to force her offspring into a situation in which the child has no interest.  Kai is your average teen; she dreams of joining her schools’ booty-bumping dance squad, and can only roll her eyes at the demure, old-school beauty pageant behavior demanded by the Miss Juneteenth organizers.

Indeed, Turquoise is so controlling that she won’t let her daughter venture forth in shorts and T-shirt lest “somebody from Juneteenth see you like that.”

Kai could be forgiven for going rebel on her mother.  Thing is, the love between these two women  is so intense that despite her reservations (and the limits of her talents and poise), Kai slogs through the indoctrination and rehearsals out of sheer loyalty to Mama.

Nicole Behari, Kendrick Sampson

Turquoise, meanwhile, spends much of her time fending off financial disaster. She fails to pay the electric bill, hoping to put that money towards a fancy dress for Kai’s debut. Her mechanic husband Ronnie (Kendrick Sampson), from whom she’s been separated for years, promises to cough up some cash.  His gambling habit pretty much assures he won’t be contributing. Still, Turquoise has a soft spot for her estranged spouse, sneaking him into her bedroom when Kai’s not looking.

She has another suitor, a young mortician (Akron Watson) at the funeral home where she has a part time gig putting makeup on dead ladies. Unlike Ronnie, this fellow has a promising future…but apparently he doesn’t rock her boat in the same way.

And then there’s Turquoise’s mother (Lori Hayes), a fervent church lady who nags her daughter to return to the fold but cannot control her own alcoholic binges.

These relationships and the slow road to the big competition unfold in scenes brimming with observations about the characters and their community. Peoples doesn’t dwell on backstory — while we see dreamlike flashbacks of a crowned Turquoise waving from a float, we never do get a full explanation of why after that promising start her world crumbled (one assumes getting pregnant by Ronnie had a lot to do with it).

But the sense that we’re witnessing a real community is palpable; this all feels utterly real.

Holding down the center is Behari’s performance; thew actress is so good at expressing Turquoise’s inner state that dialogue often becomes redundant. This woman is almost crippled by her unrealistic dreams, yet in the end there are hints that her determination may someday pay off.

| Robert W. Butler