Like many similar documentaries, this 2002 feature doesn't present easy answers, but by letting the two girls register as individuals, it forces the viewer to care about them when few around them can be bothered.

| Jul 18, 2007

The trajectories of Shanae's and Megan's lives speak volumes for themselves.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 6, 2004

An eye-opening sociological examination that is alternately moving and tedious. Ultimately, however, one can't help but be caught up in the travails of its two memorable subjects.

Full Review | Nov 14, 2003

It isn't just difficult to do justice to Shanae and Megan in an average of 44 minutes apiece; as it turns out, it's impossible.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Nov 13, 2003

While it is one part a coming-of-age story and one part a story of girls and mothers, Girlhood is just as much about the attainment of wisdom.

| Oct 31, 2003

Filmed with levelheaded tenderness and often startling intimacy.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 29, 2003

Hard-headed documentary.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 29, 2003

Gripping.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 29, 2003

Garbus spent three years patiently mining for beauty in the ugliest of environments. The remarkable result stands as a challenge to anyone who would have seen only the worst and walked right by.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 29, 2003

Garbus's follow-up to 2002's The Execution of Wanda Jean provides another powerful glimpse inside the American justice system.

| Oct 28, 2003