A Space to Grow

5/21/2024

Henry Fonda narrated this really quite dry documentary looking at the state of opportunity for young people from less privileged backgrounds in the American Mid-West. Centred around a group of curious and aware students in their late teens, it follows their educational processes, their debates with each other, their politics - inducing reason and anger in equal measure, before rounding off with some well-intentioned, if a little earnest, commentary from educators about how education can and will improve the lot of just about everyone in an American society that is still rife with segregation. Time has really left this behind, and it is now little better than a group of opinionated kids performing to camera offering - as we all did - the gospel according to me.