Female Film Critics 24/375
Roadside Attractions is cooking up an Aug. 7 theatrical bow for Alysa Nahmias’ tantalizing documentary Cookie Queens, a celebration of girlhood and the complexities that come with it. Cookie Queens tells a coming-of-age story about the joys, pressures and tensions woven into one of America’s most cherished rituals: Girl Scout Cookie season.
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That child-sex trafficking is a terrible thing goes without saying: Bad enough that, on the whole, most of us would rather not think about it. So kudos to Australian-born filmmaker Wendy Wilkins: Her briskly-paced thriller is entertaining without being exploitative and never loses sight of its message. The story of Maddy’s transformation from a small-town cop with a complicated and unhappy life, including an unfaithful husband and a devastating miscarriage, into a crusader for sexually exploited women is a good one. The performances are uniformly good, from Eric Roberts’ depiction of a very bad cop to Danny Trejo’s as a sympathetic priest.
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