Discovery itself is at risk. Last week I bought the 2-disc special edition of Sam Rami’s Drag Me to Hell (2009) at Eides Entertainment in Pittsburgh because I was scanning for Spike Lee’s Clockers (1995), and scanning titles with your eye is faster yet more dawdling than clicking through a carousel or searching a title in search bar with a very narrow idea of spelling. Serendipity is the life blood of art, even the finding of it, and serendipity like this is what allowed films like Oldboy (2003) or Jerry Maquire (1996) to find their audience after less-than-stellar theatrical releases. Jazzy (2025), Morrissa Matlz’s sequel to 2023’s breakout indie The Unknown Country, is a great film I fear will never find its audience, because who will know to spell it out? It’s been out on VOD since February 7th, 2025, but no one can find it on serendipity’s shelf.
asmine Bearkiller Shangreaux as Jazzy in JAZZY. Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment.
Where The Unknown Country was a documentary-scripted hybrid film, Jazzy evolves the idea further, revisiting Jazzy Bearkiller Shangreaux and her friend Syriah Fool Head Means in an improvised pre-teen mumblecore film about the pains of growing up. There are three things, besides the slow seduction of the film’s acting style, that make Jazzy stand out as a film.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Growing up sounds ugly.”
It is a coming-of-age story that comes to the idea of age with questions about maturity, innocence, and process. Not when does one grow up, but how does one grow up. The arc of Jazzy throughout the film is stunning in its focus on the moment of adolescence where we begin to define who we are through looking back with nostalgia, from the distance of only a year or two. The film catches Jazzy at the moment where a teenager starts to refine their inner narrative, looking back in memory and defining what those moments did to them, over and over, while adding new experiences to the recipe, until they finally have an understanding of who they are. Through editing, blocking, and story structure, the isolation experienced during the burgeoning self-awareness of the pre-teen is palpable. It is a film made by a person who loves and sees the person it’s about.
L-R: Jasmine Bearkiller Shangreaux as Jazzy and Lily Gladstone as Tana in JAZZY. Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment.
From the start of the film, adults are framed very similar to the cut-off-heads of Peanuts mumbling adults. At the start of Jazzy, we can hear them, but rarely do we see them, and when we do, they are often obscured. Even the inciting incident of the film, caused by adults, takes place off frame, as something small becomes gigantic in Jazzy’s world. As she grows up, adults increasingly encroach on her world, until Lily Gladstone’s (First Cow; Fancy Dance) Tana can rejoin the cast fully embodied within the frame.
”I would like to stay a kid forever.”
Jazzy is both a step up for Maltz and a bit rougher around the edges than The Unknown Country. Part of the film’s power comes from the film being shot nearly in sequence and watching Jazzy and Syriah (who has one of the best pouts in film) become better actors in step with growing older. But The Unknown Country also needed 5 to 10 minutes to find its footing, and that remains consistent here. Gladstone is an incredible improviser who cut her teeth on one-person shows, and Jazzy is a little girl. But by the end of the film, she’s also a fairly good actor.
L-R: Jasmine Bearkiller Shangreaux as Jazzy and Syriah Fool Head Means as Syriah in JAZZY. Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment.
Negotiating curse words with parents, playing ghosts in the graveyard, telling someone you don’t have a crush on them, talking about the good ol’ days with friends who moved away even though you’re too young to have good ol’ days, meeting family members you don’t remember — moments that make up childhood are well observed, remembered, and improvised with the cast. But some moments stretch beyond the means of the film as is typical with Maltz. The ending of the film is the kind of magic that cannot be captured by a VFX sky replacement or a matte painting or a clever storyboard. It comes from knowing the world of your film intimately, the way an artist knows their home, and a filmmaker for hire doesn’t.
J-A-Z-Z-Y. Put that in your search bar. Serendipity.
In select theaters and VOD February 7th, 2025.
For more information, head to the official Vertical Entertainment Jazzy webpage.
Final Score: 4.5 out of 5.
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Categories: Films To Watch, In Theaters, Recommendation, Reviews, streaming
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