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Step deservedly marches towards awards season

STEP (Amanda Lipitz). 84 minutes. Opens Friday (August 11). See listing. Rating: NNNN


Step is a topical, feel-good, crowd-pleaser – a combo that usually makes folks like me highly skeptical while also guaranteeing its march through awards season.

To be sure, early sections in Amanda Lipitz’s debut feature documentary, about a high school step dance team comprised of African-American girls who are pounding the pavement to find acceptance in colleges, had me doubting its sincerity.

Among the girls we follow, there’s the team leader Blessin, a natural performer who puts on her most entertaining face and lots of makeup for the camera when the filmmakers visit her home. That’s her defense mechanism, and after a little time has been invested and life creeps in, the facade begins to crumble… and with it, my cynicism.

There are quite a few moments in Step that will reduce you to mush, and not because Lipitz exploits those things that make life difficult for young Black women growing up in Baltimore, just blocks away from where Freddie Gray was killed.

For the most part, the film resists prying into these young girls’ lives, trusting the audience to fill in the different misfortunes and pressures that are thrown their way as they try to keep their grades straight.

Instead, the film’s emotional kick comes from unity and resilience, not just among the young girls but also the women who support them like when a guidance counsellor pleads with college scouts to look beyond stats and see potential, or when a mother wells up with joy after her daughter accomplishes what she never could.

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