Can documentaries have franchises? Whether they intended to or not, it seems that directors Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss have one on their hands with their newest documentary Girls State. It’s a premise that lends itself to endless revisions, where no two versions can be the same, but some similarities emerge.

If you didn’t see 2020’s Boys State, which McBaine and Moss also directed, this entry treads a similar path: it follows the Girls State program, a week-long camp held by the American Legion where hordes of teenage girls run for fictional government offices, including Senators and Governors. It’s a program where some of the most powerful women in political history have attended, including Nancy Pelosi and Condaleeza Rice. Attendees run their campaigns, stump for their platforms, and learn the ins and outs of what it takes to be involved in politics in today’s America.

As before, we have a handful of main “characters” running for various offices. There’s Emily, a proud white conservative running for governor. There’s Tochi, the daughter of Nigerian immigrants running for Attorney General. There’s Nisha, running for Supreme Court. There’s Faith, a liberal also running for governor, along with a handful of others.

The film finds fascinating ways to show how our political discourse across the entire spectrum has influenced the younger generation without making its point too heavily. Girls State gives its subjects room to let their personalities shine, and one of the film’s magic tricks is in how McBaine and Moss find access to them. Each of these girls has moments of intense vulnerability, and the film never loses sight of making them the star of the show, rather than shoe-horning in its agenda. The film was shot in the summer of 2022, when the leak of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was announced, and the abortion debate understandably takes up a large part of the film’s conversation. But Girls State‘s final act smartly shifts into a different, more nuanced topic.

While Boys State took place in Texas, Girls State is in Missouri, where both the Boys State and Girls State camps are happening concurrently on separate parts of the same college campus. The proximity of the two camps provides some interesting fodder, as the girls realize some of the seemingly inconsequential inequalities between them. Girls don’t have a gym, Girls State has a buddy system, et cetera. It’s an emblem of the gendered power dynamics that has manifested throughout our culture. But this is far from a “rah-rah, girl power” feminism documentary; this is a film that shows that young girls are smart and capable enough to have complex, thoughtful political discussion and how better off we might be to listen to what they have to say.

McBaine and Moss deserve praise not only for vetting these characters and making them worth rooting for, but in making a compelling narrative around them individually and as a whole. 2024 being an election year, we stand at a precipice as we decide the future of our country in a few months. Just as with Boys State, Girls State shows how the adults’ policies with real power have both empowered and disenfranchised the younger generation. And just as with Boys State, after finishing Girls State, I want nothing more than to see McBaine and Moss add more entries to this franchise.

Girls State will premiere on AppleTV+ on April 5.

OSCAR POTENTIAL:

• Boys State was surprisingly snubbed at the 2021 Oscars. Could the same happen this year? The documentary branch is always a toss-up, often eschewing more populist films for international and artistic films. Neither a nomination nor a snub would surprise me.